We buy scrap carbide, whatever shape it is in

The 2026 USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries reports no commercial tungsten mining in the United States in any year after 2015. A year earlier, the 2025 edition called scrap an important source of raw material for the tungsten industry.

Most of the tungsten used in the US ends up in carbide. USGS estimates that about 60% of the tungsten consumed in the US in 2025 went into cemented carbide parts for cutting and wear-resistant uses. Cemented carbide is hard tungsten carbide grains held in a tough metal binder, and cobalt is the most common binder. USGS puts about 9% of US cobalt into those same carbides (MCS 2026), and both tungsten and cobalt are on the 2025 federal list of critical minerals, so a bucket of dull inserts carries two of them at once.

The market moved hard in 2025. In February China put new export controls on selected tungsten items, and USGS reports that prices rose sharply through the year. The Rotterdam price of APT (ammonium paratungstate, the high-purity intermediate most tungsten products start from) went from $331 to $675 per metric ton unit, about double by our arithmetic. One metric ton unit of tungsten trioxide holds 7.93 kilograms of tungsten.

Worn carbide feeds back into that chain. In chemical recycling the scrap is converted back into virgin APT, and USGS wrote that almost any type of cemented carbide scrap can be reused that way, with a product equal to virgin material. That is why we quote your lot against the tungsten market, from its photos, form and weight, and why you will never see one posted price for everyone. The scrap carbide price page walks through what moves the number, and tungsten carbide recycling follows a worn tool back to powder.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Tungsten; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025: Tungsten; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Cobalt; ITIA: Cemented carbides (newsletter excerpt); OSTI: cobalt as the common binder in cemented tungsten carbide (LLNL, 2018); ITIA: Recycling of tungsten, part 2 (August 2019); USGS Open-File Report 01-349; USGS: Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals (November 2025).

Please do not grind, crush or saw carbide down to fit a box. The health concern with this material is dust. The US National Toxicology Program lists cobalt-tungsten carbide powders and hard metals as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, and IARC classed cobalt metal with tungsten carbide probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A, Volume 86, 2006).

NTP says those dusts can come from making, finishing or maintaining hard-metal parts, such as sharpening or grinding. IARC found exposure during the use of hard-metal tools, in drilling, cutting or sawing, much lower than during their manufacture, and the tungsten industry association ITIA says normal use of finished articles is expected to produce little or no exposure. For cemented tungsten carbide with more than 2% cobalt, the NIOSH recommended limit is 0.05 mg/m3 as cobalt, averaged over 10 hours.

We buy broken, chipped and worn pieces as they are, so there is no need to make them smaller; selling scrap carbide to us covers the rest of the sale. Keep grinding sludge in a lidded container, say on the quote form what it is, and read how to ship your carbide before you tape up a heavy box.

Sources: NTP Report on Carcinogens: Cobalt-Tungsten Carbide; IARC Monographs Volume 86; ITIA: Health and environment.