Most people in Delhi call a kabadiwala, accept whatever number is offered at the door, and never find out whether it was fair. Here is what the different scrap streams are actually worth, and which ones are worth more than people expect.

Metal is where the money is

Not all metal is close. The spread between iron and copper is enormous, and separating what you can before a pickup is worth real money.

Copper sits at the top by a wide margin. A single coil of stripped wiring can be worth more than a whole load of iron grilles. Brass comes next, then aluminium, then stainless steel, with plain iron and mild steel at the bottom.

That is why it pays to keep copper wiring separate rather than leaving it inside whatever it came out of. Mixed loads have to be rated conservatively because the buyer cannot see what is in them. Separated metal gets its own rate.

See what we take under scrap metal.

Paper is low value but high volume

Newspaper is the cleanest grade to recycle and sits at the top of the paper range. Books and mixed paper come slightly below it, and cardboard below that.

Nobody gets rich on raddi. But offices, schools and societies clearing months of accumulation do get a meaningful amount, and it is the easiest scrap to sell because it needs no dismantling.

Dead appliances are worth more than most people think

This is the stream people most often give away for free, and it is usually the most valuable thing in the house.

A dead refrigerator or air conditioner contains a compressor, a long copper circuit and a heavy steel cabinet. A washing machine contains a motor wound with copper. A microwave, despite its size, holds a transformer that is dense with copper.

None of these should be handed over for nothing, and none should cost you money to remove. If somebody wants a fee to take away your dead fridge, call someone else.

If you can name the appliance, our appliance pages give an instant figure rather than a callback. A dead AC quotes here, a dead fridge here.

Batteries are regulated, and that matters

Old inverter and car batteries hold real value because of the lead in them. They are also hazardous waste, and legitimate handling runs through recyclers registered to process them.

We collect batteries and pass them to authorised recyclers rather than breaking them ourselves. Anyone offering to strip a battery in a yard is not operating properly, and the price difference is not worth what it supports.

Details on battery collection.

E-waste: strip your data first

Old computers, printers, monitors and cables all carry recoverable value in their boards and casings.

One piece of advice that matters more than the price: remove or destroy the hard drive before handing over any machine. Do not rely on the buyer to wipe it. Pull the disk out and keep it. It barely changes what the machine is worth.

How to not get underpaid

Get the rate before the scale comes out. The common trick is to weigh first and quote after. Ask what the rate is per kilo for each material before anything is loaded.

Watch the weighing. Any honest buyer will weigh in front of you. If the scale is in a van you cannot see, that is a choice they made for a reason.

Separate the valuable metal. Ten minutes pulling copper wiring out of a bundle can be the most profitable ten minutes of the transaction.

Do not pay for removal. A load with genuine value should never cost you money to have taken away.

Get one price for the lot. Clearing a flat is more efficient for the buyer than a single item, and that should be reflected in what you are offered.

Getting an estimate

Our scrap estimator lets you pick everything you have, paper, metal, appliances, electronics and batteries, and gives a rough figure before anyone travels. Scrap is settled by weight at pickup, so the final number is confirmed in front of you, but you go in knowing roughly what to expect.

That is the whole point. The problem with scrap in Delhi is not the rates. It is that almost nobody knows them before the van arrives.

Selling a working appliance rather than scrap? Working units are worth several times their scrap value. See what an old AC is worth.

What Scrap Dealers Actually Pay in Delhi