Scrap aluminium bought by grade: section, sheet, cast and more
Resilient Contracting buys scrap aluminium from fabricators, window and shopfitting firms, engineers and strip-out contractors. Every load is sorted by form and alloy, weighed, and paid for by bank transfer.
- Licensed dealerA Wigan Council scrap metal site licence, on the public register.
- Paid by bank transferStraight into your account, with a weight and grade record for each load.
- Graded, not lumped inEach metal priced for what it is, not as the cheapest thing in the pile.
- Paperwork doneWaste transfer notes for every collection, so your records stay complete.
Aluminium arrives in more shapes than most scrap: window sections, cladding and sheet, cast housings, machining turnings, heat exchangers and cans. They are made from different alloys, so a smelter buys each one separately. Thrown together, they sell for less than each would apart.
We collect aluminium from fabrication shops, refurbishments and plant strip-outs, and grade it against the forms below at our licensed site in Martland Park, Wigan. If a load could have graded higher, we’ll tell you how.
Grades
Aluminium grades, and what lowers them
- 01
Clean extrusions and sections
Window, door, shopfront and racking sections with the glass, gaskets, screws and plastic removed. Bare and anodised section go together. Painted section and thermal-break profiles grade lower, so give them a separate pile.
- 02
Sheet and plate
Offcuts, old sheet, chequer plate and solid cladding panels. Clean, uncoated sheet grades best. Peel off protective film, scrape off sealant, and keep foam-backed or composite panels out of it.
- 03
Cast aluminium
Gearbox and engine casings, pump bodies, motor end-shields and housings. Cast alloy melts differently from wrought, so it sells as its own grade. Drain the oil and knock out steel inserts and bearings where you can.
- 04
Aluminium turnings
Chips and swarf off the lathe or mill, listed as non-ferrous filings and turnings (12 01 03). They grade on dryness and purity, so let the coolant drain and keep steel swarf well away.
- 05
Mixed, painted and irony aluminium
Painted or coated aluminium, mixed forms, and aluminium with steel bolts, hinges or brackets still fixed on. It sells at a lower grade, and a little time with a drill or grinder often lifts it.
- 06
Aluminium/copper radiators
Condensers, coils and heat exchangers with copper tube and aluminium fins. They sit between the two metals in value. Cut off steel frames, and have any refrigerant recovered by a qualified F-gas engineer first.
- 07
Drinks cans
Empty, dry cans with the steel ones pulled out (a magnet finds them) and no plastic or general rubbish. Cans are very light, so they’re only worth collecting in bulk.
Price
What decides the aluminium scrap price
Aluminium is priced against the aluminium market, with the London Metal Exchange (LME) as the reference, and that moves daily. What a buyer pays for your scrap depends on how cleanly it can go back into the furnace as the alloy it came from.
Grade comes first: one alloy in one form, such as bare extrusion, beats mixed forms. Then cleanliness, because paint, plastic, rubber, steel and oil all come out at the smelter and are deducted. Thick section and plate melt with little loss, while foil-thin and dusty scrap loses more. And because aluminium is light, volume matters more than it does with copper.
Phone 01942 906041 for today’s aluminium scrap price, or send photos with a rough weight or skip size to info@resilient-contracting.co.uk, and we’ll price it grade by grade.
Today’s price, on the day
Scrap prices follow the metals markets and change daily. Call 01942 906041 or send photos and a rough weight through the quote form, and we will price what you actually have, grade by grade.
Aluminium we buy and collect
- Window, door and curtain-wall sections
- Shopfitting, racking and display extrusions
- Sheet, plate and chequer plate
- Solid aluminium cladding and roof sheet
- Cast housings, casings and pump bodies
- Turnings and swarf, drained
- Aluminium ladders and access equipment
- Aluminium cable and busbar
- Aluminium/copper radiators and coils, degassed
- Drinks cans in bulk
- Aluminium with steel attachments
Not aluminium scrap, and where it goes
- Aluminium composite panels with a plastic core: they aren’t solid aluminium, so they need a specialist recycler
- Foil and foil trays: your dry mixed recycling
- Air conditioning units still charged with refrigerant: get the gas taken out by a certified F-gas technician first
- Glass from window frames: glass recycling, once the frames are stripped
- Aerosols and gas bottles: empty aerosols to dry mixed recycling, gas bottles back to the supplier
- Spent coolant drained from turnings: a hazardous waste route, never the swarf bin
Collection
Containers and collections for aluminium
Set up around your site and the amount you produce, so each metal stays in its own grade until it is collected.
Stillages and A-frames
Long sections stay straight and stackable, with glass and gaskets kept out of the pile.
Bins and bulk bags by grade
One labelled container each for section, sheet, cast and turnings, placed where the scrap is made.
Roll-on/roll-off skips
When glazing or cladding comes off a building, a roll-on/roll-off skip keeps the aluminium out of the general waste and goes as one load.
A collection once it’s worth it
Aluminium is light, so it takes volume to make a load worth moving. Tell us roughly what you have and we’ll say when to collect.
Why it matters
Sorting aluminium and selling it to a licensed buyer
Sorting aluminium is mostly about taking things off: glass out of frames, gaskets and screws out of sections, steel off castings, film off sheet. Each is a small job on the bench that saves a deduction later. Keep cast, extruded and sheet in separate containers from the start.
Sell only to a licensed dealer. Our Wigan Council site licence is SML/S0042, and our Environment Agency number, for an upper-tier carrier, broker and dealer, is CBDU581935. Both are on public registers. We verify your name and address, pay by bank transfer only, never cash, and issue a waste transfer note with every load.
How it works
From a phone call to money in the bank
Say what the metal is and give us a rough weight or a skip size. A photo or two speeds it up. You will know how it will be priced before anything moves.
Call or send photos
What the metal is, how it is mixed, roughly how much and where it is. A few photos usually tell us most of it.
Collection arranged
A one-off pick-up, or cages, bins or a skip on site so it can be kept apart as it comes out.
Weighed and graded
Each metal is weighed and graded for what it is, so clean copper is not paid as mixed scrap.
Paid by bank transfer
Payment against the weights and grades, with a waste transfer note for the load.
Related services
Other scrap we buy
-
Scrap cable
SWA and power cable, copper and aluminium conductor runs, rewire offcuts and whole drums, sorted by type and paid for by bank transfer. Find out more -
Scrap copper
Bright wire, heavy copper, tube, pipe and mixed copper, each grade kept apart so you are paid for what it really is. Find out more -
Scrap stainless steel
Industrial stainless from plant, ducting, tanks and fabrication, sorted by grade so its nickel content counts. Find out more
How much is scrap aluminium per kg?
It depends on the grade and on the aluminium market that day, so the price is set on the day. Clean, bare extrusion and sheet pay more than cast, turnings, painted section or aluminium with steel and plastic attached. Ring us, or email photos and an idea of the weight, and we’ll price each grade in your load on the day.
What is the difference between cast and extruded aluminium?
Extrusions are pushed through a die into long, even sections, such as window frames and racking. Castings are poured into moulds, so they are chunkier and grainier, such as engine casings and pump bodies. Casting alloys usually carry more silicon, so the two are melted and sold separately. If you can’t tell, a photo is usually enough for us to grade it.
Do I need to take the glass out of aluminium windows?
Yes, if you can do it safely. Glass, rubber and plastic must all come out before the metal is melted, and frames with the glass in carry weight nobody pays for. Stripped frames grade as extrusion. Thermal-break frames, with a plastic strip through the middle, grade lower but are still worth keeping apart from mixed scrap.
How can I tell aluminium from stainless steel?
Pick it up. Aluminium feels far lighter than stainless of the same size. It is also softer, so a file or key marks it easily, and old aluminium leaves a grey residue on your hands. A magnet won’t settle it, because aluminium and the common stainless grades are both non-magnetic. Keep the two apart: they are bought as different metals.
How do I get today’s price for my scrap?
Call 01942 906041 or send us a few photos through the quote form with a rough weight or volume. Scrap prices follow the metals markets and change from day to day, so we price on what you actually have at the time, by grade, rather than quoting a figure that could be out of date tomorrow.
Is it worth separating our scrap?
Almost always. A load is graded on what drags it down, so copper with brass fittings left on, stainless with mild steel brackets or cable thrown in with general waste is bought as the poorer material. One cage or bin per metal, with the rubbish kept out, is the cheapest way to lift what your scrap earns.
Scrap aluminium across the North West
Collections of aluminium from sites right across the region. Each town page covers the estates and industry nearby.
- WiganOur home town
- Skelmersdale4 miles from our Martland Park site
- Chorley7 miles from our Martland Park site
- St Helens7 miles from our Martland Park site
- Leigh8 miles from our Martland Park site
- Bolton10 miles from our Martland Park site
- Warrington12 miles from our Martland Park site
- Preston14 miles from our Martland Park site
- Bury16 miles from our Martland Park site
- Liverpool16 miles from our Martland Park site
- Salford17 miles from our Martland Park site
- Manchester19 miles from our Martland Park site
Sell your scrap
Get today’s price for your aluminium
Tell us what metal you have, roughly how much and where it is. Photos help. We will come back with how it will be priced and how to get it collected.
- Call 01942 906041For today’s price and a collection
- Emailinfo@resilient-contracting.co.uk
- Our siteUnit 11 Otterswood Square, Martland Park, Wigan WN5 0LF