Japan Begins Recycling Rare Earth Metals From Electronics

Black Gold Alchemist writes "Dowa, a Japanese mining company in Kosaka, has begun the recycling of rare earth metals from used cellphones and computers. This is in response to a recent, temporary trade embargo from China, which is the leading supplier of rare earth metals needed for production of products including hybrid cars, wind turbines, and LCD screens. Because of the shortage of rare earth metals, Japanese trade minister Akihiro Ohata is asking the government to include a rare earth strategy in its supplementary budget for this year."

Comments

about time too...

[advocate_one]

should have been doing this ages ago, but yet again, no pressure to do so while supplies were cheap

Re:about time too...

[Wyatt Earp]

The future is going to be like Against a Dark Background, we'll be going through the piles of debris looking for exotic metals.

That or we go to the asteroids and mine them.

Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick

[arivanov]

Well, this goes to show how much of electronics recycling is a gimmick and publicity stunt.

Separating rare earths out of electronics waste is actually not that difficult: hit it with acid; do some basic purification first to get rid of Fe, Cu and a few other "usual suspects"; after that ion exchange chromatography does the deed. Even without initial mechanical separation there should be enough of them in the acid effluent. The fact that it was not done shows how much are we really "recycling" there.

In fact, we should say thank you to China on this one. This may finally make EU, USA and Japan governments put some money behind the electronic waste disposal laws.

Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick

[mean pun]

Well, this goes to show how much of electronics recycling is a gimmick and publicity stunt.

Actually, it shows that current electronics recycling is not a gimmick, at least in Japan. The entire infrastructure apparently is already in place, is functioning, and is economical enough to survive. There is more to recycling than just rare metals.

Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick

[petermgreen]

the only competitive advantage is the ability to refine the ore economically with low environmental impact.
Or the ability to refine it economically without giving a fuck about the environmental impact.

Not exactly a first

[spectrokid]

The technology has been around for years. I guess what is new is that the suits no longer see it as a "green" thing but as a necessary supply line.

Non-cycle?

[Smallpond]

What this suggests is that there should be a middle ground between dumping stuff in a landfill and recycling it. We should be segregating material that we don't currently recycle or doesn't make economic sense to recycle, but might become scarce in the future. That will make it easier to recycle when we need it.

Re:Non-cycle?

[txoof]

In Norway we have plastic, glass, metal, electronic, paper and food scrap recycling and it's pretty popular. I think most everyone just does it because it's the 'right thing' to do. It doesn't hurt that there's curbside for most of it.

Necessity...

[zrbyte]

THE most powerful driver of change.

Sadly this is the way we overcome our big problems. Not by foresight, predictions and educated action. The shit has to start hitting the fan to get people moving in the right direction. I mean this whole rare earth situation has been foreseen. It was obvious that China was building a monopoly years ago. The same thing happens with the coming helium shortage, energy problems, global warming, you name it. It really has to get nasty for people to do something about these things.

reuse better than "recycling"

[GodWasAnAlien]

As with everything else, reuse is most always better than recycling.

Royalty-free standards should be created for battery shapes and connectors, and a garbage tax should be placed on non-standard batteries.

Interchangeable parts were key to the industrial revolution. Sometimes we forget.