Around two thirds of a scrap car by weight is metal, and nearly all of it is recovered and used again. Steel and aluminium can be recycled over and over without losing quality, which is why the metal in your car is the reason scrapping pays you rather than costing you.
From car to raw material
By the time the metal recycling starts, the car has already been depolluted and stripped of reusable parts during the vehicle recycling process. What is left is mostly a metal shell, and it follows four steps.
1CrushingThe depolluted shell is crushed into a compact block at the yard, ready for efficient transport to a shredding site. Some larger facilities do both jobs on one site.
2ShreddingA heavy-duty shredder tears the block into hand-sized fragments of metal, plastic, glass and fibre in seconds.
3SortingPowerful magnets pull out the steel and iron. Eddy current separators fling the aluminium and copper clear of the rest. Air flow, flotation and manual checks catch what the machines miss.
4Back to industryThe sorted metals are baled and sold as raw material for new cars, construction, electronics and machinery. What cannot yet be recovered is the shredder residue, the industry's remaining challenge.
Ferrous and non-ferrous: the two streams
| Stream | Metals | How it is separated | Where it goes |
|---|
| Ferrous | Steel, iron | Magnets | Melted into new steel, including new car bodies |
| Non-ferrous | Aluminium, copper, zinc | Eddy current separators | Remelted or sold on as sorted material |
Why metal is the easy part of car recycling
Unlike plastics and fibres, metal recycles without degrading. A steel beam can become a car panel and then a tin and then a beam again, indefinitely. The energy savings are what drive the whole industry: recycling aluminium uses 95 per cent less energy than producing it from mined bauxite, and one recycled tonne saves 14,000 kWh, roughly an average UK home's energy needs. Recycling copper takes up to 85 per cent less energy than primary production.
The UK is one of the world's largest scrap metal exporters, sending between 70 and 80 per cent of its scrap abroad as raw material. The metal from your old car is a globally traded commodity, and that demand is what sets the price you are paid for a scrap car. Some components carry value beyond their weight too: the engine is worth more than its metal alone.
Making sure yours is recycled properly
Every yard in the Remove My Car network is a registered Authorised Treatment Facility, selected and held to standard. When your car goes through the network, the metal is recycled in line with Environment Agency requirements and the Scrap Metal Dealers Act, and the car's full journey is covered in how car recycling works.
Ready to scrap your car?
Free collection, guaranteed price, Certificate of Destruction issued.
Get a quoteEnergy savings and export share: British Metals Recycling Association, recyclemetals.org. Checked 28 August 2026.
