Nearly one third of China's copper consumption comes from
recycled waste and mixed coppers, said an official with the Chinese
society of non-ferrous metals industry Saturday.
Wang Jiwei, an official with the society, said that China has
geared up for reusing and recycling used coppers, in a bid to
release the tension of copper resource shortage, and has brought
positive influence to both domestic and international copper
markets.
Statistics provided by Wang's society show that China recycled
and reused 1.16 million tons of "waste" and mixed coppers in 2004,
accounting for 28 percent of the country's total consumption, up 14
percent from that of the previous year. The above figures exclude
coopers reused directly by cooper processing enterprises, totaling
one million tons.
Last year witnessed an increase of 25 percent import of waste
coppers, while the electrolytic cooper import reduced by 12
percent.
Ranking the world's No.1 copper consumer, China is in dear
shortage of copper mine resources. A great gap between copper
demand and production has spurred more enterprises to resort to
recycled coppers.
China has already formed a structure for reusing waste coppers,
with import and distribution centers established in port cities and
other areas.?
(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2005)