The DOWA Group started as a mining, smelting and refining company, and has endeavored to improve our technologies for more than a century and established a unique business model covering investigation of resources, mining and recycling. In the Nonferrous Metals business we extract useful metals from natural resources. In the metal processing business we add value to the extracted metals. In the electronic materials business we further improve the functions of metal materials and, in the environmental management & recycling business we detoxify wastes and separate and collect metals from waste.
Our present lines of business are connected with each other and operate focusing on metals and based on technologies that we have accumulated and cherished in this growing economy and changing social environment.
Corporate History
Denzaburo Fujita, founder of DOWA group obtained Kosaka Mine from the Government in 1884. This mine is the foundation of the DOWA group. The "black ores" excavated there, included valuable metals such as gold and silver but also many impure substances. Various elements were also intermingled in them in a complicated manner, making smelting and refining difficult. In 1902 the company succeeded in developing a unique smelting and refining method called flash smelting after many failures and finally succeeded in extracting and smelting gold, silver and copper from those ores. DOWA group has obtained the world leading technologies of collecting, smelting and refining metal elements by overcoming those challenges. Those diversified business activities of DOWA at present is based on these smelting technologies.
DOWA group has established a unique resource-recycling business model,
focusing on metals, by utilizing its assets of technologies accumulated
in the mining and smelting business since foundation
and responding flexibly to the social needs.
Towards Resolving Social Issues
< Depletion of Resources and Metal Recycling >
Depletion of resources is a global issue now. It is a pressing issue for Japan especially as Japan does not have rich natural resources. Precious and rare metals are indispensable for industrial fields of automobiles and electric appliances as they are the main industries that support Japan.
Recent efforts have been put forth to collect precious and rare metals contained in used products including electric appliances and electronic devices. Used small electronic devices amount to approximately 650,000 tons a year in Japan and this corresponds to 0.85% of the finally disposed wastes (total of domestic wastes and industrial wastes) in 2008. Recovery and recycling of these wastes not only lead to natural resource saving but also significantly contribute to reducing environmental load accompanied by excavation of mines and prolonging the lifetime of final waste disposal sites through reduction of wastes.
< Challenges and Legislation >
Metal recycling requires those technologies and infrastructures to effectively recover metals and to treat hazardous and useless substances that are generated in the process of recovery in a safe and assured manner. There are many technical and economical issues that should be resolved, including building a social system to recover materials for recycling effectively and sharing time and cost of disassembling and classifying various different materials.
Under such circumstances, the Cabinet adopted a bill concerning Promotion of Recycling Used Small Electric Appliances (Draft) in March 2012, from the viewpoint of ensuring proper treatment of wastes and useful utilization of resources.
DOWA's Commitment
DOWA Group is committed to promoting activities to make use of the technologies developed from the mining and smelting business for metal recycling and environmental conservation as a company that leads our resource-recycling society.
Recycling of 22 elements including rare metals
In 2011, the Kosaka smelting & Refining newly started operation of nickel and tin recovery plants, making the DOWA Group can to handle 22 elements. Collected metal resources, from indium for crystalline liquid to gallium for semiconductors, silver for solar panels and white gold and precious metals for automobile catalysis are circulated back to the society through new products.
22 elements recovered by DOWA and products made of
PCs, mobile phones, hybrid cars, solar panels, etc.
Safe Treatment of Hazardous Substances
Some electric appliances and electronic devices contain hazardous substances that could cause global warming and destruction of the ozone layer, including CFC, lead and arsenic. Improper disposal of such substances may cause environmental pollution and damage to human health.
DOWA Group can collect lead or arsenic in a safe and assured manner from wastes, as we have know-how to collect those minerals from natural ores. Since we are also engaged in intermediate treatment and landfilling of wastes utilizing our technologies and infrastructures accumulated from our mining business, we have a completed system to dispose and manage unusable substances within the DOWA Group. We are also engaged in a business activity to destroy CFC recovered from refrigerators and air conditioning systems in cooperation with our recycling plants of household appliances and incineration plants.
Overseas Deployment
DOWA group deploys overseas business in the field of environmental management & recycling ahead of other Japanese companies, including large-scale waste disposal business in Indonesia and Thailand as well as several recycling businesses in China. Resource-recycling and reduction of environmental load are now social issues on a global basis. Utilizing advanced Japanese environmental technologies overseas on a global basis is indeed one of the core strengths of DOWA's corporate philosophy of contributing to creating a good life and building a resource-recycling society through our global business activities. We are committed to further promoting these activities.
