Korea badly needs rare earths, the metals used in smart phones, flat screen TVs and many other electronic products, but their import is getting costlier and costlier.
According to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, Korea should look to “urban mining” for some of its supply: extracting the minerals from used and discarded gizmos and appliances.
With the exception of some metals such as nickel, SERI said, Korea currently imports over 95 percent of rare metals from overseas, and prices are sharply rising.
But only a few companies in Korea have shown interest in recycling the minerals from the tons of discarded appliances that have them. Some recycling is done to recover gold and silver.
The rare metal “reserves” in Korea’s urban mines could total 85,800 tons, SERI said. In electronic devices alone, Korea has about 12.3 times the amount of its annual rare earths imports of 3,000 tons.
Imports in the past two years have been focused on nickel, manganese, boron, molybdenum and chrome.
Imports of rare earths rose from $3.3 billion in 2002 to $12.9 billion in 2008.
And in the same period, major rare metal prices tripled, and some, such as indium which is used in mobile phones and liquid crystal displays, rose 8.5 times.
SERI said that Korea should look to Japan, which has a huge urban mine of rare earths in reserves. In 2001, the government started recycling major rare earths from appliances thrown away from homes and offices.
After making such recycling part of its law, Japan has seen a huge jump in the collection of elements from cars and electronic appliances. Companies such as Hitachi have plans to source 10 percent of its rare earths from recycled sources.
SERI said urban mining business requires advanced technology and close coordination between the government and the business world. It said the government should aggressively invest in research and development while companies must upgrade their technology.
“Urban mines should be widely spread around the country so that Korea can lower its overseas dependency and prepare for times in the future when the supply becomes vulnerable,” said Jeong Ho-sung, senior researcher at SERI.
Source: Korea JoongAng Daily
By Jung Seung-hyun