Tsunefumi Nakatsuji, president of the Japan Iron & Steel Recycling Institute (JISRI), expressed his “heartfelt thanks” to delegates at the 4th China International Metal Recycling Conference “for your letters of condolences and encouragement to those of us in Japan since the tragedies of the East Japan Earthquake on March 11.”
At the event in Guangzhou, China, Nakatsuji provided an update to attendees on the cleanup and rebuilding process in the earthquake zone, as well on Japan’s overall ferrous scrap and steelmaking industries.
The earthquake and tsunami has claimed more than 13,000 lives with another 14,000 people still listed as missing, said Nakatsuji. Also, some 137,000 people in the six affected prefectures have had to be evacuated from their homes, he noted.
“Some of the recycling facilities of JISRI member companies were heavily damaged by the earthquake and tsunami,” noted Nakatsuji, “but they have been quickly recovering and cleaning up their scrap yards, and repairing their machines so that they can contribute to the recycling of the huge amount of scrap resulting from the damage.”
Nakatsuji estimated that “the total volume of scrap [metal] resulting from these tragedies is reported to be 1 to 2 million [metric] tons.”
The subsequent reactor building explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant have caused widespread health concerns as well as concerns in the international scrap market about radiation levels in scrap shipped out from the Fukushima region.
Nakatsuji noted that after the radiation problems took place, Japanese and Korean steel mills set an identical acceptable maximum radiation level, while China’s customs agency set a more strict level. “JISRI has suggested that an international standard for the radiation safety [for] recycling scrap must be discussed and agreed upon among all the nations of the world in order to avoid problems at future times of crisis,” said Nakatsuji.
Japan’s steel industry has been rebounding since what Nakatsuji referred to as the “Lehman Shock” of 2008. In 2010, the country produced nearly 110 million metric tons of steel. Only about 22 percent of that total (23.8 million metric tons) was made with the electric arc furnace (EAF) process, he noted.
However, basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmakers in Japan are melting more scrap than they used to, said Nakatsuji. “Since the early 2000s, the scrap usage ratio [at Japanese BOF mills] has been raised from the prior 6 to 7 percent to 12 to 14 percent,” he commented. Japan has available scrap for these BOF buyers and still generates enough to export some 5 million tons annually to China, South Korea and other nations.
The 4th China International Metal Recycling Conference, organized by the Metallurgical Council of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (MC-CCPIT), was held May 13-14, 2011, in Guangzhou, China.