The aluminium industry, with the desire to reduce costs and impact on the environment, increases the use of secondary aluminium as a raw material resource. It is well known that aluminium can be remelted several times without losing its properties. Nevertheless, the industry faces a number of challenges that include the supply of secondary material, appropriate sorting, effective refining, reduction of melt losses etc. The quality of secondary material is related to several factors which include purity of material, pollution (oils, dirt, plastics and paper), coatings and size. The size of the material is associated with inclusions and mass losses. Remelting light scrap causes more inclusions and higher melt losses than remelting bulky scrap. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of a specific surface on the melt recovery and to determine basic thermal characteristics of recycled aluminium alloys using thermal analysis known as simple thermal analysis (STA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Materials used during the research were wrought aluminium alloy AA7075 and two types of secondary aluminium with different specific surfaces. Secondary aluminium, obtained from recycling of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE), was in form of a sheet metal. The study confirmed the linear influence of the specific surface of the secondary aluminium, used as an input material, on the melt losses and formation of oxides and inclusions. Thermal analysis serves as a good control research method for determining the formation of phases and inclusions.