Carbide recycling programs: what each buyback takes and how it pays

A carbide buyback program is a maker's offer to buy your used carbide tools back so the material can go into new ones. Sandvik's 2025 annual report says it repurchases customers' used cemented carbide inserts, drill bits and rock tools to make new tools.

Cemented carbide, or just carbide, is hard carbide grains, mainly tungsten carbide (WC), held in a tougher metal binder such as cobalt. An insert is the small cutting tip screwed onto a steel tool holder; drills and end mills are cutters ground from carbide rod.

The International Tungsten Industry Association (ITIA) says buy-back programmes motivate end users to collect and separate tungsten products, which addresses the loss from dilution. A 2021 review by Zeiler and co-authors gives an example: a worn drill head may end up in a steel scrap tray and go into structural steel, where its tungsten and cobalt are lost. The same review estimates the average global recycling share for cutting tools at 55%.

For 2025, Sandvik says its Machining business helped customers bring back carbide equal to 57 percent of the weight of materials sold. Sandvik Coromant's 2026 Global Recycling Day release, as archived in May 2026, says recovered material is bought at the current market price.

Sources: Sandvik Annual Report 2025: resource use; Sandvik Annual Report 2025: Machining; Sandvik Coromant release, Global Recycling Day 2026 (archived May 2026); ITIA: Cemented carbides; ITIA newsletter, May 2018 excerpt; ITIA: Supply and circularity; Zeiler et al. 2021, tungsten recycling.

These programs differ on who may sell, what they take, who pays freight and how they pay. The Kennametal and Sandvik Coromant cells come from Internet Archive captures of each company's own US pages, dated in each cell; GTP's pages state no region.

WIDIA's US page, as archived in January 2026, says its carbide recycling program runs in the United States, Canada and Germany. CERATIZIT's brochure (May 2024) lists four steps ending in payment and says it works with a partner in the USA. Other makers may run programs too; ask them or your distributor.

Sources: Kennametal carbide recycling, US (archived Feb 2026); Kennametal recycling terms, US (archived Feb 2025); Kennametal Get Pricing (archived Oct 2025); WIDIA carbide recycling, US (archived Jan 2026); Sandvik Coromant US recycling page (archived Jan 2026); Sandvik Coromant US recycling terms (archived May 2026); GTP recycling brochure; GTP scrap submission form; CERATIZIT recycling brochure (05-2024).

Seco's recycling page describes a bin program: it supplies bins, you ask for collection when one is full, and the carbide is sorted and weighed on arrival. Its page says "the price depends on the market."

Seco will recycle any carbide product, bars and anvils included, but no steel, ceramic or cermet. Solid PCD and solid PCBN are unsuitable too, though PCD or PCBN tipped inserts are accepted. Containers are a cup for about 2-3 kg (4.4-6.6 lb), a box for about 20 kg (44 lb) and a drum for about 350 kg (770 lb). The page gives no region or date.

Seco has also announced a web service in customers' My Pages accounts for quotes, free containers, shipment booking and tracking. The release, datelined Fagersta, March 18, with no year printed, says it is available in several markets, with the Americas under planned expansion. Ask Seco or your distributor whether it is open in the US.

Sources: Seco: carbide recycling; Seco: web-based recycling service release.

These programs are documented for their own countries; ask the maker whether it buys in the US.

Germany. Gühring gives free yellow barrels of 20, 60 or 210 litres, pays the transport to collect a full one, buys any manufacturer's carbide at the current market price, sorts it and credits the value to your customer account. Its bonus programme can save up to 15 percent on the new purchase price.

UK. MMC Hardmetal U.K. takes used drills, end mills and indexable inserts that need not be sorted, collects full boxes free of charge and notifies the scrap value within 2 weeks of collection. Dormer Pramet's UK page describes a free box, picked up when full, checked, weighed and paid at the market price, and says the scheme is a pilot in Sweden, France, Denmark, the UK and the USA; ask Dormer Pramet whether it is open to you.

Japan. In a feature framed around Japan's rare-metal supply, Sumitomo Electric says customers that use cemented carbide tools get collection boxes, collected periodically by its tool sales company Sumitomo Electric Tool Net, and that it also accepts scrap from competitors' products. The feature names no country for the boxes.

Sources: Gühring: Circular economy; MMC Hardmetal U.K.: Recycling; Dormer Pramet: Carbide recycling (UK page); Sumitomo Electric: collection feature.

A program fits when your carbide meets its own terms on who sells, brand, size, volume and payment.

• Who and which brand. Kennametal's online terms, as archived in February 2025, are for customers of Kennametal products, not scrap brokers, dealers or agents. Sandvik Coromant's US terms, as archived in May 2026, cover tools of any brand, and Gühring buys any manufacturer's carbide in Germany.
• Volume. Kennametal's online program takes at most 3,000 lb (about 1,360 kg) a month from one seller; more goes through its metallurgical group (Feb 2025).
• Size. Sandvik Coromant's terms (May 2026) limit solid carbide tools to under 160 mm (6.3 in) long and 8 kg (17.6 lb); GTP's form charges a crushing fee over 6 in or 25 lb.
• Payment. Kennametal's terms (Feb 2025) say net 30. Sandvik Coromant's terms (May 2026) allow payment no later than 30 days after an undisputed invoice or a credit against a future Sandvik invoice, and Gühring credits your customer account in Germany. A credit goes against that maker's own invoices, so ask which you will get.

Before you ship, ask five things: whether other brands are accepted, who pays freight, whose scale counts, what happens to rejects, and whether you get money or credit.

Sources: Kennametal recycling terms, US (archived Feb 2025); Sandvik Coromant US recycling terms (archived May 2026); GTP scrap submission form; Gühring: Circular economy.

Carbide a program turns away can still be sold; we buy carbide in any form and any brand.

Mixed brands. Ask a program whether it takes other brands before you mix them in one bin. Of the US terms we read, Sandvik Coromant's, as archived in May 2026, say any brand.

Brazed tools. On a brazed tool the carbide is brazed onto a steel part, and ITIA notes that the solder on brazed parts must come off before processing. Sandvik Coromant's US page, as archived in January 2026, takes nothing brazed or attached, and Kyocera Unimerco's page (copyright 2022) lists soldered carbide inserts as not suitable for recycling.

Sludge. Hard scrap is solid pieces, such as inserts; soft scrap is fine material such as grinding sludge, sweepings and powders, and most of it is recycled by chemical conversion. Kennametal's US page, as archived in February 2026, also accepts soft scrap such as sludge, and GTP's form lists grinding sludge.

Our side: we buy carbide in any form and any brand, pay the shipping from anywhere in the US, pick up in every city in California, Arizona and Nevada, and pay cash where state law allows. See the Kennametal and Sandvik guides, where to sell carbide and the offer calculator. Then send photos and a rough weight through the quote form and compare the offers.

Sources: Sandvik Coromant US recycling page (archived Jan 2026); Sandvik Coromant US recycling terms (archived May 2026); ITIA newsletter, May 2018 excerpt; Kyocera Unimerco: Circularity; USGS: tungsten recycling in the US (2005); ITIA newsletter, August 2019 excerpt; Kennametal carbide recycling, US (archived Feb 2026); GTP scrap submission form.