Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Japan Begins Recycling Rare Earth Metals From Electronics

Posted by Soulskill on from the need-fembot-parts dept.

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."

14 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. about time too... by advocate_one · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  2. Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by arivanov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    1. Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by mean+pun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by zrbyte · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      Separating them from other stuff is easy, usually because these elements are very reactive. Separating them from each other is another, much harder task. Actually, using ion exchange chromatography I doubt you can get tonnes of chemically pure metal. You need a lot of fancy chemistry. Actually this is the most polluting part of the industrial process and one of the contributing factors to closing US and European refining plants.

    3. Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by samkass · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      --
      E pluribus unum
    4. Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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).

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    5. Re:Goes to show how much of recycling is a gimmick by wrook · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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...

  3. other options are also being considered by siddesu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:other options are also being considered by siddesu · · Score: 5, Informative

      Are you going say US restrictions on crypto/hi-tech export is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of the US as an economic player"?

      It most certainly did. Did you miss the few years in the 90s when it spurred a large body of crypto research and work outside of the US by all parties, who were affected by the ban?

      Are you going to say Russia's restricting food export due to projected shortage, or Thailand's restriction of rice export due to poor harvest is doing "a lot of harm to the credibility of these 2 countries as an economic player

      Having a reason for the restriction (shortage due to a crop failure) is something quite different from using trade limits as a policy tool. I am not sure why you can't see the difference.

      For example, the attempts of Putin to use gas exports as a policy tool in Europe has certainly brought more than a few frowns from the EU. With Ukraine, it exploded into a full-blown trade war.

      is just a simple message to Japan saying "we are not going to let you slap us in our face and then expect business to go on smoothly".

      It is my understanding that the arrested captain tried to ram a Japanese vessel. This is certainly a crime in Japan, and probably one in China. In this case, it seems China is applying laws more selectively than Japan.

    2. Re:other options are also being considered by vlm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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...

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  4. Non-cycle? by Smallpond · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Non-cycle? by txoof · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen... --Hobbes
  5. Necessity... by zrbyte · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

  6. Re:Not Sure, Seems to Be More Territorial Dispute by molnarcs · · Score: 4, Informative

    In fact, we should say thank you to China on this one.

    Recent news reports have Japan accusing China of this being over a territorial dispute. The traders are saying that things have resumed but that this is just an excuse for China to harass traders and outbound exports with "preshipment" checks. China denies this has anything to do with the dispute but the timing is more than a bit suspect and why is this only directed at Japan?

    China is in territorial dispute with every SE-Asian country that has a shoreline. They claim sovereignty over every island down to the Philippines. For example, they have claims over Paracel islands which in theory, belong to Vietnam. Recently they started to harass fishing boats, hold them at ransom, very similar to what Somalian pirates do. Vietnam has historical documents to prove their claim - irony is, that actually some of the documents the Chinese produced to prove their point turned out to be validate the Vietnamese claims (they mention these islands as "foreign lands" in their records). Also, they threatened foreign companies (oil exploration) that had contracts with Vietnamese oil companies to back out. Finally - this started this year - they began to organize "tours" to these islands, showing the beauty of these "most remote Chinese lands." In reality, there's nothing to see there actually. Except Vietnamese fishermen who lived there for generations. Well, not anymore, actually, but you get the point ... just trying to illustrate how territorial the Chinese are... and how arrogant.