How do you calculate recovered material yield?

Divide recovered saleable metal by total infeed and multiply by 100. With 8 recovered from 250 infeed, yield is 3.2%.

What is a good recovered material yield?

It depends entirely on the feedstock. Clean industrial bundles can exceed 95%, while end-of-life mixed shred residue might only yield single digits of a target metal. The benchmark you set should match the grade.

Why is my yield so far below target?

In the example the 3.2% yield sits 91.8 points under a 95% target, which almost always means the count and population are measuring different things, the feed is residue rather than concentrate, or a separator is misrouting metal to the reject stream.

What does the gap to target mean?

It is yield minus target in percentage points. A negative gap, like the 91.8-point shortfall here, says you are below benchmark; a positive gap means you are recovering more than planned.

Should I count by weight or by piece?

Weight is far more meaningful for metal recovery because piece counts ignore mass. Keep the recovered figure and the total in the same unit so the ratio is honest.

How often should I run this?

Every shift or batch for a tuned line, and continuously during commissioning. Trending yield over time catches a drifting separator long before a monthly close would.

Metal Recycling, Scrap Processing & Salvage calculator

Recovered material yield Calculator

Recovered material yield is the share of your gross infeed that comes out the other end as clean, saleable metal after shredding, magnetic separation, eddy-current sorting, and hand picking. Plant managers and metallurgists at shredders and non-ferrous recovery lines live by this number because every yield point lost to dirt, fluff, or misrouted fines is margin walking out with the residue. It is the single clearest gauge of how well your separation train is actually working versus how it was designed to work. Comparing measured yield against a target rate turns a raw recovery figure into an action signal for the sort line.

What this calculator does

Estimate recovered material yield for metal recycling, scrap processing and salvage using production-ready inputs so teams can track KPI performance and decide whether corrective action is needed.
Use it when recovered material yield in metal recycling, scrap processing and salvage needs a clean rate and gap-to-target you can put on a tier board.
It computes recovered saleable metal as a percentage of total infeed processed, then reports the gap in points between that yield and your target.

Formula used

Recovered material yield rate = recovered material yield count ÷ total recovered material yield population × 100
Recovered material yield gap to target = recovered material yield rate - target recovered material yield rate

Inputs explained

Recovered saleable metal (clean output):
Total infeed processed (gross input):
Target recovery yield benchmark:

How to use the result

Use it on shift-end reconciliations, when commissioning or tuning a separation line, or when auditing whether an incoming grade is paying out as expected.
It is a mass ratio only; it does not tell you where losses occur, so a low yield needs downstream sampling of fluff and residue to find the leak.

Current U.S. benchmarks

The producer price index for steel mill products stands at 348.53 (BLS, May 2026), up 6.7% from a year earlier. Quotes priced off last quarter's material cost miss this move.
U.S. iron and steel imports ran $2.1B in May 2026 (Census International Trade). The U.S. ran a trade deficit of $0.4B in the category that month. Import volumes are the pressure gauge behind tariff and reshoring decisions.

Common questions

How do you calculate recovered material yield? Divide recovered saleable metal by total infeed and multiply by 100. With 8 recovered from 250 infeed, yield is 3.2%.
What is a good recovered material yield? It depends entirely on the feedstock. Clean industrial bundles can exceed 95%, while end-of-life mixed shred residue might only yield single digits of a target metal. The benchmark you set should match the grade.
Why is my yield so far below target? In the example the 3.2% yield sits 91.8 points under a 95% target, which almost always means the count and population are measuring different things, the feed is residue rather than concentrate, or a separator is misrouting metal to the reject stream.
What does the gap to target mean? It is yield minus target in percentage points. A negative gap, like the 91.8-point shortfall here, says you are below benchmark; a positive gap means you are recovering more than planned.
Should I count by weight or by piece? Weight is far more meaningful for metal recovery because piece counts ignore mass. Keep the recovered figure and the total in the same unit so the ratio is honest.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.