Japan Ministries and Smelters Seek Metal Recycle System from Used Home Electronics

Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry and Ministry of Environment held the second meeting of rare metal recycle system working group from used small consumer electronics in Tokyo on Wednesday. The working group asked Japanese major nonferrous metal smelters, Nippon Mining & Metals, DOWA Eco-System, Mitsui Mining & Smelting and Mitsubishi Materials to explain about several key points for recycle system establishment at the meeting. The smelters other than Mitsubishi Materials attend the meeting.

The asked terms were metal collecting flow from used small consumer electronics, evaluation of material purchasing volume and price, and metal recycling cost.

The smelters explained they should mainly collect printed circuit boards which contain copper, lead, zinc and precious metals from used small consumer electronics. They can also collect indium from used liquid crystal panels by separated process lines. They described tungsten, tantalum and rare earths cannot be collected basically and these metals need to be separated ahead of the smelting process.

The smelters said they are willing to purchase gold, silver and copper recycling materials at minimum 1 tonne per lot in order to cover metal content analyzing cost. Recycling cost was explained at 50,000 yen per tonne if the smelters throw used small consumer electronics directly into smelting furnaces.