Quite interesting, Joe. Of course, you will always get the
anti-recyclers, as well! As far as the mobile phones and other
electr(on)ics are concerned, this is really what WEEE is all about, as
opposed to RoHS.

Another part of the urban mine, or rather urban oilwell, which was not
mentioned, is the enormous resource of energy that is available. I
evoked it earlier on this board, but there is a revised version of it at
http://www.cypenv.org/worldenv/files/tridel.htm.

Best regards,

Brian

Joe Fjelstad wrote:
> February 29, 2008
> Copyright (c) 2008, Japan for  Sustainability
> 
> Japan for Sustainability (JFS) is a non-profit  communication platform to
> disseminate environmental information from Japan to  the world, with the
> aim of helping both move onto a sustainable  path.
> 
> See what's new on our web site:  http://www.japanfs.org/
> E-mail:  [log in to unmask]
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> In  the February 2008 issue of the JFS Newsletter:
> 
> - Could Japan Be Rich in  Resources? 
> Exploiting the 'Urban Mine' Effectively
> 
> - Towards a  Sustainable Japan--Corporation at Work Article Series No. 69
> Promoting  Sustainability through Real Estate
> (Jones Lang LaSalle)
> 
> -  Government Initiatives to Support a Sustainable Agricultural Industry
> in  Japan
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Could  Japan Be Rich in Resources? Exploiting the 'Urban Mine' Effectively
> 
> Japan  is generally regarded as a country with not many resources,
> particularly  lacking in minerals and fossil fuels, and is considered
> dependant on imports  for most of its supplies. Japan used to be capable
> of importing as many  resources as necessary to sustain its industries,
> but the global resource  situation is now changing rapidly.
> 
> One recent trend is that China, the  biggest resource exporter, has
> started to restrict its resource export  volumes due to increasing
> domestic demand from its surging economy. In  addition to China, the
> resource demands of the other three BRIC countries -  Brazil, Russia and
> India - are also rapidly rising as these countries emerge  as economic
> powers. Resource demand trends in these countries are boosting  resource
> prices around the world.
> 
> In this context, the concept of the  "urban mine" is getting more
> attention. An "urban mine" sounds like a mine  located in a city but
> these mines do not require digging into the ground -  the urban mine is
> the stock of resources already existing in society. For  example, iron
> bridges are regarded as a stock of iron. Mobile phones use  various rare
> metals, and thus constitute a stock of resources.
> 
> Some  metal resources are already collected and recycled from mill ends
> after  manufacturing or from products discarded after use. For example,
> 18.36  billion aluminum cans, amounting to 298,641 tons in weight, were
> used for  juice and beer in fiscal 2006. Of the weight consumed, 90.9
> percent was  recycled, and the ratio of recycled material used to
> manufacture new cans  reached 62.1 percent.
> 
> In short, recycling aluminum cans several times  over makes it possible
> to deliver drinks in these containers with less use of  virgin aluminum. 
> In the context of the urban mine concept, all aluminum cans  in the
> society - including those now on the market and those in between uses  -
> can be regarded as an "aluminum mine" in the cities. Likewise, scraps  of
> iron, copper, aluminum, lead, etc are important material  sources.
> 
> Growth in demand for the so-called rare metals and rare earths  is
> particularly rapid, as they serve in a wide range of functions  that
> support product innovation, for example in mobile phones and  televisions.
> Since the stock of available resources on earth is limited,  resource
> supply risk is rapidly expanding due to resource depletion  and
> skyrocketing prices.
> 
> One possible way to reduce resource risk is  effective use of the urban
> mine, that is, recycling scarce resources already  existing in cities.
> However, the extent Japan's urban mine stock of these  resources is
> presently unknown.
> 
> Komei Harada, chief of the material  laboratory of the National Institute
> for Materials Science (NIMS) tried to  determine the total amount of
> recyclable metals stocked in Japan. He  calculated estimates for a wide
> range of metals: gold, silver, copper, iron,  tin, zinc, lead, aluminum,
> nickel, antimony, cobalt, indium, lithium,  molybdenum, platinum,
> tantalum, tungsten, and vanadium. The results of his  study, announced in
> January 2008, revealed the scale of the urban mine in  Japan.
> 
> These calculations were based on foreign trade statistics, or  records of
> exports and imports, but Harada also used input-output tables  because
> raw materials are often traded after being made into components  or
> products. First of all, using the input-output table, he estimated  the
> percentage of raw materials exported from Japan in the form of parts  and
> products. Then, after multiplying the percentages by component  demand
> determined from industrial statistics, he deducted the amount of  raw
> materials that were exported as finished products. With respect to  the
> volume of the iron stockpile, Japan's ferrous raw materials  association
> calculated the domestic stockpile by using data on material flows  in
> 2003. The results of Harada's calculation were almost coincident  with
> the 2003 figures calculated by this association. This indicated  that
> using input-output tables is a credible way to calculate the  stockpile
> of each metal.
> 
> Harada's calculations revealed that the scale  of the urban mine in Japan
> can compare with the stocks held by the world's  leading mineral
> resource-rich countries. The amount of gold stockpiled in  Japan is about
> 6,800 tons, which accounts for 16 percent of the world's  current
> reserves of 42,000 tons. Its silver stocks amount to about 60,000  tons,
> accounting for 22 percent of the world's stocks. As these metals  are
> used extensively in electronic parts, demand for them will increase  and
> the supply is expected to be in crisis worldwide.
> 
> Japan's stock of  indium, which is used in the form of transparent
> electrodes for display  devices and solar power generators, equals 61
> percent of world stocks.  Moreover, Harada's calculations revealed that
> Japan's stock of many other  metals amount to over 10 percent of world's
> reserves, such as tin (used for  electronic parts) at 11 percent and
> tantalum at 10 percent.
> 
> In order  to understand the scale of the urban mine in Japan, Harada also
> tried to  calculate how many years the stocks will last if current global
> demands for  metals are supplied only by Japan's urban mine. In these
> calculations, he  found that Japan has accumulated as much as the entire
> volume of metals  consumed in the entire world for two to three years. In
> particular, its  stockpiles of lithium, expected to be in demand as a
> material for batteries,  and platinum, essential as a catalyst and for
> electrodes in fuel cells, are  large enough to meet total world demand
> for six to eight  years.
> 
> Compared with the reserves at natural mines in major  mineral-producing
> countries, Japan's urban mine has the largest quantity of  gold, silver,
> lead and indium in the world, the second largest quantity of  copper,
> and the third largest quantities of platinum and tantalum. It has  often
> been said that Japan has few natural resources and Japanese people  have
> believed this without question. However, the latest research shows  that
> Japan has one of the world's largest stockpiles of rare  metals.
> 
> The importance of the urban mine has not been recognized  sufficiently in
> Japan, and systems to recover and recycle most of these rare  metals have
> not yet been set up. Thus, Japan's urban mine remains  undeveloped, and
> worse yet, quite a lot of these metals end up overseas in  the form of
> low-priced scrap. Japan, and the whole world, need to use these  urban
> mine resources more actively and efficiently.
> 
> For this to  happen, collecting systems of used products and recycling
> facilities need to  be set up. Japan's nonferrous metal industries
> recover nonferrous metals from  waste such as discarded electronic
> devices and vehicles by applying  separation and refining technologies
> that originated in the ore smelting  process. Thus, to a certain extent,
> recycling facilities are already in  place. In fact, a so-called "urban
> mine" has been set up where a real mine  used to be: the Kosaka Smelting
> & Refining Co. (formerly the Kosaka  Mine), in Kosaka Town, Akita
> Prefecture, has been recovering metals from  electronic substrates using
> the huge smelting facilities belonging to the  mine, which closed after
> 130 years of operations.
> 
> In this metal  recycling process, about 280 grams of gold can be
> recovered from about 10,000  mobile phones, which weigh one ton.
> Considering that only five grams of gold  are extracted from one ton of
> gold ore, it is obvious that the urban mine is  an exceedingly rich
> resource. This phenomenon is not limited to gold. It is  said that one
> mobile phone weighing 100 grams, contains 0.028 grams of gold,  0.189
> grams of silver, 13.7 grams of copper, and 0.014 grams of  palladium.
> 
> To take advantage of the urban mine, the collection rate of  used
> products must inevitably be increased. For example, Japanese people  tend
> to replace their mobile phones every 18 months on average. However,  the
> collection rate of used phones is declining because an increasing  number
> of users want to still keep their old phones for non-telephone  functions
> - as an address book or camera - or for fear of leaking  private
> information. Manufacturers also need to design easily  disassembled
> products in order to make recycling collected used products  easier.
> 
> A wide variety of natural resources are being exhausted around  the world,
> exacerbating the risks of resource depletion and driving up prices  for
> industries everywhere. Mitigating such problems will require  the
> creation of systems for resource recovery and recycling that  minimize
> wasteful use of natural resources and make full use of the  rich
> resources that have accumulated in urban areas. These  critical
> challenges for Japan and other countries of the world are just  now
> taking shape. We hope to continue monitoring related events and  report
> back in our newsletters.
> 
> (Written by Junko  Edahiro)
> 
> 
> 
> **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living.      
> (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/
> 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598)
>