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

other options are also being considered

[siddesu]

like, for example, importing the stuff from mongolia. this may turn out to be the faster and cheaper way out.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704380504575529383600995748.html

The most interesting part of this mini-debacle is how did the idea that there would be a shortage of rare earth elements came about at all, and why did the Chinese believe it, the idea being utter bullshit.

While it is true that China manages to produce these cheaply at the moment, rare earth elements are available basically all over the place in similar proportions.

Using them as a policy-making tool has done no harm to Japan, and potentially a lot of harm to the credibility of China as an economic player, especially to its counterparties in Asia, but also anyone who may have a reason to expect potential future clash of interests.

While the Japanese acted out during the crisis as scared pussies, the Chinese appear to have played the role of the dumber party.

Seeing great Asian powers like Japan and China just learning to dab at foreign relations after 6 decades of American dominance is very interesting.

Re:other options are also being considered

[vlm]

While it is true that China manages to produce these cheaply at the moment, rare earth elements are available basically all over the place in similar proportions.

Correction, China produces zinc cheaply at the moment. Mostly due to complete lack of environmental regulation.

The situation with indium is weird. If you scooped up a random perfectly mixed shovel full of global average earth crust, its 3x as high concentration as silver, which sounds GREAT. However, unlike silver, it never really accumulates anywhere. The current best source is some of the residue of zinc ore production, where its a spectacular 50 ppm, about 200x more concentrated than average crust composition. Silver sometimes is dug out of the ground in nuggets of more or less pure silver, which is a factor of a million more concentrated than average, plus or minus an order of magnitude. Thats why we have mines for silver, but no mines for indium.

So indium is freaking everywhere, all over, at a very low level. Last I heard, it wanders around a tenth of gold price. You could get about ten oz of indium per thousand tons of "average crust"... At roughly current indium prices thats about a thousand bucks revenue for processing about a thousand tons of dirt. A buck a ton isn't going to do it, even with slave labor in China. But what if the price went up to, say, platinum prices? Thats $20K revenue for a thousand tons of dirt, or $20 per ton. I'm thinking $20/ton is economically viable, maybe even in the USA...

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

[Asic Eng]

Mainly politics I think. They want to show a response to the Chinese embargo threat. China is punching way above it's political weight, mainly on the assumption that one day they'll actually reach that weight and is becoming increasingly aggressive with (very dubious) territorial claims against many of it's neighbors. They either need to adapt a more cooperative stance, or Japan is better served by being less dependent on China.

Re:Non-cycle?

[martas]

while this is a good idea (ok, a very good idea), the difficulty is implementing it. it's already difficult enough to separate the 5 or 6 kinds of materials that are being recycled today from trash, let alone extending that to a large number or other, potentially recyclable materials (which is, really, almost every kind of trash other than food...). pulling this off would require serious commitment from governments, organizations, and individuals, and that seems unlikely, considering that simply separating plastic bottles and cans from trash already seems to be an incredibly difficult task for many people...

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

[Rogerborg]

Uh... if China closed its ports tomorrow, who would blink first: them, or the rest of the world?

Up to now, China has been a most benign economic superpower, certainly far less abusive than Russia, the EU or the USA who engage in round-robin economic blackmail pretty much constantly.

If China ever start punching at their actual weight - for example, asking what exactly they can buy with the trillions of foreign currency that they're sitting on - then we'll all be they beeyatches.

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

[samkass]

if China closed its ports tomorrow, who would blink first: them, or the rest of the world?

If China tried that, it wouldn't actually happen and would show the lack of power their central government actually wages. It would probably lead to the overthrow of the Chinese government long before it brought down any foreign power.

Up to now, China has been a most benign economic superpower, certainly far less abusive than Russia, the EU or the USA who engage in round-robin economic blackmail pretty much constantly.

China's entire currency system is economic blackmail. By all rights it should have appreciated an extra 50%, and the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to succumb to such blackmail.

If China ever start punching at their actual weight - for example, asking what exactly they can buy with the trillions of foreign currency that they're sitting on - then we'll all be they beeyatches.

They can't "buy" anything with it. They have to hold on to it in order to artificially affect the exchange rates of the currencies. Their dependence on US debt purchases for this means WE have THEM over a barrel. Relatively minor policy changes on our part could have sweeping effects on the valuation of their entire economic system. Of course, they have nowhere else to dump the money so they continue to rely on US debt purchases despite its weakness. Imagine if 90% of your 401K was also kept in your company's stock... think Enron's employees... that's what China is potentially setting itself up for by buying so much debt from their biggest trading partner and the largest economy in the world.

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

[elrous0]

Most "recycling" in the U.S. (probably most of the western world) consists of loading electronics into shipping containers and sending them to some third world shithole where the locals strip them in toxic working/living conditions. Interesting investigative report not long ago from 60 Minutes on the subject (and it's a chance to see the rare bit of actual investigative journalism, before it goes completely extinct).

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

[wrook]

it shows that current electronics recycling is not a gimmick, at least in Japan.

Not terribly sure about electronics, but with everything else you'd probably be amazed. I have 7 different garbage categories in my town. I have to put my name and location on my garbage bags. If I make a mistake in sorting the garbage, they send it back to me (it has happened more than once...). And it's not just gross sorting. With pet bottles I have to take the caps off (different category) and the labels off (different category). My yogurt containers are made from recyclable plastic covered with cardboard. I have to separate the cardboard from the plastic and put it in different containers. Etc, etc, etc...

Electronics is easy. You take it to the electronics shop and they take care of it for you. I'm not sure exactly what they do, but I'm assuming it's fairly rigorous. Japan just doesn't have any landfill space...