Rare Earths- Recycling the way ahead

Rare earths, that have become such a vital part of our life, like petroleum, are going the same way as the petroleum politico-economics. Like OPEC cartels petroleum, China cartels rare earths as it is the largest supplier of these elements in the world. No, the story wasn’t this earlier, until when China exploited its rare earth geomorpho-miracle in its Inner Mongolian strip and outpaced the production to foreign competitors. Chinese are the top exporter of rare earth elements at 97% of global exports because along with their government’s cooperation they were able to price the rare earths so low in the international market that no foreign competitor could stand against it. Through the dominance in exports, China earned the complete control over the pricing of rare earth elements. The production of these elements were so huge in China that erstwhile leaders like Brazil and South Africa were belittled in their production and  made their companies go out of business because they weren’t having the feasible price to compete against the Chinese.

 This history has again been tactically resorted to  another advancement by the Chinese: they suddenly stopped producing too much- so much that the demand exceeded the supply and the prices went haywire. This was also against the WTO  protocols. Although many countries preserve their resources, the Chinese went a little ahead strangulating the world’s supply chain and when the prices shoot up, probably then they want to enter into business again– which is any regular market behaviour by structures formally trying to monopolize the world trade.

USA, E.U and Japan have pushed for a probe through the WTO , but that’s enough time for the prices to have any significant impact on the already stooping economic honour of the world though China argues that the reserves they possess is disproportionate to the exports they make.

Saviour’s name recycling ?

 The “honour” of the world can be saved by mass recycling of electronic devices which do contain “in life” rare earths in their manufacturing. You reading this and I writing this , we do know how much of e-waste is lying in our homes. The stop gap in the crunch can be filled in with our own hands working in divulging these wastes to our nearest e-waste processor. Recycling the e-wastes for their valuable elements promptly can give us back our supply to the demand we have created before the low supply contributes to the low demand that is already putting our recession to limp.

©The Idea Bucket, 2013.

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