We buy scrap carbide in any form

Carbide is not one metal. It is grains of tungsten carbide held together by a metal binder, most often cobalt, pressed from powder and sintered hard. ITIA, the tungsten industry association, describes the classic straight grade as nine parts tungsten carbide to one part cobalt. A National Toxicology Program background document puts most commercial grades between 3% and 16% cobalt.

Both metals in it are worth recovering. The USGS estimates that 60% of the tungsten consumed in the United States in 2025 went into cemented carbide parts for cutting and wear (Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). The same edition reports no commercial tungsten mining in this country after 2015.

The market moves, and lately it has moved hard. According to the USGS 2026 edition, the Rotterdam price of ammonium paratungstate (APT), the main intermediate most tungsten products are made from, went from $331 to $675 per metric ton unit during 2025, after China put export controls on selected tungsten items that February. Cobalt counts as well: purchased scrap supplied 25% of the cobalt consumed in the US in 2025, per the USGS cobalt summary.

So we quote every lot on its own instead of printing a number. Where tungsten and cobalt stand that week, the grade, coatings or braze, and how clean the material is all move what a lot is worth. Our carbide scrap price page walks through each of those.

Sources: ITIA: applications and markets; NTP: hard metals background document; ITIA: recycling of tungsten, part 2; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: tungsten; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: cobalt; ITIA: cemented carbides.

Anyone with carbide can sell it to us. USGS says cemented carbide parts are used mainly in construction, metalworking, mining, and oil and gas drilling, and those trades are where most of it piles up:

• Machine shops: worn inserts, broken end mills and drills, and the can of dull tools under every bench.
• Tool grinders: tools too short to regrind, broken rod ends and grinding sludge.
• Manufacturers: wire-drawing dies, punches, nozzles, seal rings, feed rolls and other wear parts.
• Mines and drillers: rock bits and the carbide buttons in them.
• Road and construction contractors: road-milling teeth, which ITIA lists among typical carbide products as road chisels for removing old tarmac, plus masonry drills.
• Woodshops and saw shops: carbide-tipped saw blades and router bits.
• Everyone else: a retired machinist’s toolbox, an estate cleanout, a garage drawer of old bits.

California, Arizona and Nevada each regulate how scrap metal is bought and paid for, and those laws are why we say we pay cash where state law allows. Arizona bars on-site payment for a scrap metal sale of $300 or more; payment is a check or money order mailed to the physical address the seller gives through a current driver license or other listed ID. Nevada requires a scrap metal processor to pay for scrap metal purchases of $150 or more only by check or electronic transfer. California’s payment rule (a check mailed to the seller, or cash or check collected on or after the third business day) covers only nonferrous material, which the statute defines as copper, copper alloys, stainless steel or aluminum. Carbide is not on that list, though the state’s record and ID rules apply to scrap metal purchases in general.

Have a driver’s license or state ID ready in all three states. Our guide to the scrap metal rules has the details, including Arizona’s exceptions for industrial accounts.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: tungsten; ITIA: applications and markets; ITIA: cemented carbides; NTP: hard metals background document; Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1642; Nevada Revised Statutes chapter 647; California AB 1508 (2012), Bus. & Prof. Code 21608.5; California Attorney General bulletin 2025-DLE-12.