For the workers at Re-Tem Corporation in Tokyo, one person’s trash is certainly another’s treasure.
They are one of many Japanese firms involved in what is called urban mining – or the recycling of electrical equipment for precious and rare metals and minerals.
On Tuesday, China, the source of much of the world’s rare earths, announced a 30 percent cut of rare earth export quotas in 2011. This follows a brief ban of rare earth metal exports to Japan during a diplomatic row. These incidents have been a wakeup call, especially to Japan, to look for alternatives.
So while Japan is often considered resource poor with few natural mines and ores, it has turned its attention to the wealth of national urban scrap, potentially one of the world’s wealthiest sources of metals.
The National Institute of Material Sciences estimates Japan’s scrap heaps contain at least 10 percent of the entire world’s metal and mineral reserves, and could potentially have similar amounts in rare earths.
[Yoshiko Yamamoto, Researcher, Re-Tem Corp.]:
“A typical urban mine consists of small home appliances. There are a lot of rare earth and rare metals included in these small home appliances. We are in a process of researching how to efficiently extract and recycle rare earth, rare metals, including precious metals and other metals that are inside these home appliances.”
However, recycling metals from scrap is still not a cheap option. But the Japanese government is hoping to change that by investing heavily in recycling research.
[Yoshiko Yamamoto, Researcher, Re-Tem Corp.]:
“Recycling technology, including the intermediary process, is still under development and not yet well established as an industry. I think the number of researchers will start to increase from now on and when that happens, we will see advancement in technology, and that in return will jumpstart the recycling industry. I think this industry is a growing field.”
The Japanese government has promised to budget aRen extra 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in research, new supply routes and stockpiling of rare earths, hoping never to be caught as unprepared as they were when China decided to clamp down.
Rare earth elements have a variety of technological and industrial applications… including batteries, computers and weapons systems. Over 97 percent of the world’s supply comes from China. Half of China’s rare earth exports go to Japan, without which Japan would struggle to create many of the high-tech products it is famed for.
There are currently many new mine projects outside of China in the pipeline, but few will be able to compete with it on price.
Source: NTD Television