Scrap treatment

A process for fragmenting metal scrap includes cooling the scrap until it is brittle by contacting it with a first cooling agent which is gaseous and then fragmenting the scrap in its brittle state, said first cooling agent being cooled by being passed through a heat exchanger to which a second cooling agent is fed partly in the liquid phase and partly in the gaseous phase and from which the second cooling agent emerges in the gaseous phase, in which the improvement resides in said cooling agent being supplied to the heat exchanger partly from a liquid storage facility and partly directly from a refrigeration plant, the refrigeration plant being used in conjunction with a liquifier to supply the storage facility with liquid second cooling agent, and in which the gaseous second cooling agent is supplied to the refrigeration plant following its emergence from the heat exchanger said refrigeration plant, during periods in which the cooling of the scrap is interrupted, drawing warm gas from an external source and, in conjunction with the liquifying plant, replenishing the liquid store in readiness for the next scrap cooling cycle.