Dowa Holdings to Launch Zinc Recovery Business from Steel Dust

Dowa Holdings announced on Wednesday the subsidiary, Dowa Metals & Mining firm established zinc recycling company in Akita to launch business of zinc recovery from steel making dust. The firm builds new facility in Akita Zinc for around 5 billion yen. The firm tries to launch the new business when domestic steel makers build recycling facilities to recycle steel making dust to reduce carbon dioxide and improve the utilization of the resources. Dowa Metals & Mining controls 100% of the new recycling company with 100 million yen of capital. The firm builds facilities for raw materials treatment, zinc refining, lead and copper recovering and waste water treatment. The firm starts the operation in January 2010 targeting annual 20,000 tonnes of treatment in zinc volume. The recycling company collects zinc containing steel making dust from steel makers and remelts the dust to ship to Akita Zinc, which makes electrolytic zinc with the intermediate material. Dowa group launched new smelting facility for recycling in 2007. The group tries to expand the recycling business under higher price and tight supply of primary metals and raw materials.