SENDAI — Used mobile phones and other small electrical appliances are attracting attention for their metal content, including such rare elements as platinum and tungsten.
While there are some local governments and industries that have begun collecting gadgets to harvest and recycle metal components, the central government has delayed legislative steps to recycle rare metals and left any official effort up to the Environment Ministry, which launched experimental collection operations in early July.
In Akita Prefecture, an experiment is being conducted to collect gadgets that might provide precious metals.