Showcasing the importance of non-ferrous metals recycling

The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metals Branch (CMRA) has organized an exhibition in Beijing, adopting as its title “Ten Years of Recycled Non-ferrous Metals”.

The exhibition summarized the positive achievements of the recycled non-ferrous metals industry using concise language, pictures, charts, physical objects, works of art and other media. It was divided into four themes or chapters: research and development of recycled aluminium products; research and development of new technologies for recycled copper; industrialization of the comprehensive utilization of red mud; and transformation of urban minerals into treasures.

The exhibition area devoted to recycled copper and aluminium covered application of new technologies such as for crushing and sorting of recycled aluminium, energy conservation and environmental protection, metal 5G communication equipment structures, new energy automobile structures, automobile engine blocks, turbocharger shells, engine transmission case covers, and recycled copper products for new energy vehicles and batteries.

The red mud section of the exhibition showed red mud recycling iron powder, silicon aluminium powder, silicon iron powder, powder filler, red mud-based composite materials, slope protection bricks and other physical samples, as well as red mud road models, thus making fully visible the application of red mud products.

The recycling of waste materials has achieved outstanding results. Compared to 2012, annual processing capacity of key electrical and electronic products in China had increased by 73 million units in 2021 and the standardized processing rate had climbed 44 percentage points. In 2021, the volumes of nine major recycling resources in China - including scrap steel and non-ferrous metals, as well as scrap plastics and paper - had reached 385 million tons, more than twice the total for 2012. Recycling resources have become important raw materials for industrial production, and their role in supporting and ensuring national resource security has gradually increased.

The CMRA is vigorously promoting the application of recycled non-ferrous metal products. Against the backdrop of the “double carbon” goal of gradually replacing traditional energy systems with new energy, the aim should be to strengthen the technological breakthroughs of automobile lightweighting and 5G, to promote the high-quality development of the industry, and to make greater contributions to the carbon emission reduction of the non-ferrous metals industry.