The words on your docket

Vehicle plus load, recorded on the way in.

The first of the two readings a weighbridge takes. On its own it means nothing — it only becomes a number you are paid on once the tare is subtracted from it.

The empty vehicle, recorded on the way out.

Taken after tipping, which is why you weigh twice for one transaction. A yard that uses a stored or assumed tare rather than weighing your actual vehicle is estimating the part of the sum that decides your money.

Gross minus tare — the metal itself.

The figure the rate is applied to. Both readings it comes from belong on the docket, because a net weight you cannot check is just a number you are asked to accept.

The printed record of a single transaction.

Weights, grade, rate, deductions and the seller's details. Retained by the yard as a licensing obligation and kept by you as the only evidence of what was agreed.

The published market price a contract rate is derived from.

Scrap is remarketed against internationally traded metal prices, so a contract nominates a published index and an agreed treatment charge rather than a fixed number. The rate then moves with the market in both directions.

The agreed deduction from index that covers processing and freight.

The merchant's margin, stated as a number in the agreement instead of hidden inside a quoted rate. Fixed for the term, which is what makes an index-linked price forecastable.

Iron-bearing, magnetic, priced by the tonne.

Steel and cast iron. Lower value per kilo than non-ferrous by a wide margin, but it is the bulk of what moves through any yard by weight.

No iron content, non-magnetic, priced by the kilo.

Copper, aluminium, brass, lead, zinc and stainless. Worth sorting carefully — the gap between a well-separated non-ferrous load and the same metal thrown in together is the largest single variable a seller controls.

The top copper grade: clean, uncoated, unalloyed wire.

Stripped copper wire of 16 gauge or heavier with no insulation, no solder, no paint and no oxidation. The premium grade against which every other copper grade is discounted.

Clean tube and bus bar, versus copper carrying solder or plating.

#1 is unalloyed, uncoated and free of fittings. #2 tolerates solder, paint, light plating and attached brass fittings, and grades accordingly. The distinction is worth real money on a full load.

Heavy melting steel, split by thickness and preparation.

HMS 1 is 6mm and heavier, cut to size and free of contamination. HMS 2 accepts lighter section and mixed lengths. Both are melting stock — the grade is about what a furnace can charge efficiently, not about how the steel looks.

Used beverage cans — aluminium drink cans, loose or baled.

Their own grade because the alloy is consistent and the recycling loop is short. Dry and free of other rubbish is the whole specification.

Machining waste — chips, borings and shavings.

Graded by alloy and by how much cutting fluid it carries. Kept in sealed stillages rather than open bins, both because the fluid has to be managed and because mixed swarf is nearly impossible to separate afterwards.

Aluminium pushed through a die — window frames, rail, trim.

Clean extrusion is a high aluminium grade. Thermal-break sections with plastic strips through them, and anything with steel screws or rubber seals left in, grade lower until the attachments come out.

Whether material is already sized for a furnace charge.

Prepared material is cut to length and dimension and can be charged as it arrives. Unprepared needs shearing or torching first, which is processing time and shows up in the grade.

Stripping hazards out of a vehicle or appliance before processing.

Fuel, oil, coolant, refrigerant gas, batteries and airbags all have to be removed and handled separately. It is the reason a car body and a fridge are not simply loose scrap steel.

A handheld gun that reads a metal's actual composition.

X-ray fluorescence identifies an alloy in seconds without damaging the piece. It is what settles a disagreement about whether stainless is 304 or 316, and using it costs nothing but the walk over.

A drive-on scale for weighing a whole vehicle.

Used for trade, it must be a verified instrument and stay verified on a servicing cycle. Every transaction across it produces two readings and one docket.

The container a furnace is loaded from.

Its dimensions are why steel grades care about length. Material that does not fit has to be cut down first, which is the entire practical basis of the size specification on a ferrous grade.

Plant that compresses loose metal, or cuts heavy section down.

A baler compacts light gauge into dense blocks so freight is not spent carting air. A shear cuts plate and structural section to charge size. Both raise the grade of what leaves the yard.

Electric arc furnace — where recycled steel is remelted.

Charged largely with scrap rather than iron ore, which is why recovered steel has a genuine market rather than a disposal cost, and why grade specifications are written around what a furnace can efficiently melt.

The three bin formats most sites end up using.

A stillage is a small forkliftable cage for dense material and swarf. A marrel is the mid-size skip most workshops picture. A hook lift is the large roll-on body used where volume justifies a truck movement.