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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chinametals19mar19,0,6454847.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
World Scrambles to Feed China's Appetite for Metal
By Don Lee
Times Staff Writer

March 19, 2006

YONGKANG, China — About once a month, Ying Guangwu tucks some cash inside his black shirt, slings a knapsack over his back, and hits the road.

The square-jawed 33-year-old doesn't always know where he's headed or when he'll return. But he knows exactly what he's looking for: tons of scrap metal.

A pen-shaped magnet in his pocket helps him determine the quality of some metals. In December, Ying spent two weeks in Guangdong province, a 20-hour bus ride away, rummaging through factory warehouses and scrap yards. He bought 10 tons of tin ingots, lead cables and imported scrap, shipping them by truck to his wife, Lin Li. She sorted the stuff inside their two-story home before reselling it to metal traders and recyclers in town.

Ying and Lin, high school graduates, earned about $25,000 last year — more than what many Chinese doctors and lawyers make.

"I didn't want to do this when I was young. It seemed stupid to me," says the second-generation scrap collector, whose sunburned face bears the mark of 10 years on China's dusty streets. But his father took the right path, Ying says. "This is turning trash into treasure."

China's voracious appetite for metals is convulsing the world. It has led to economic booms in some nations and crime waves in others by so-called urban miners who steal metals from houses and public buildings. China's runaway economy needs the metals to build railroads, office towers, cars and appliances.

The Middle Kingdom is now the world's biggest consumer of copper, lead, zinc, iron ore, steel and aluminum.

China's hunger has boosted mineral-rich nations, from copper-laden Chile to Australia, which has vast iron deposits. Prices of new and used lead, copper, nickel and other metals have tripled or more in the last few years, triggering a worldwide scramble for the commodities.

Chinese state-owned mining companies are prowling the planet for fresh supplies, while armies of people such as Ying and Lin spend their days hunting for castaway metals from typewriter letterheads to 30-foot-long aluminum missile casings.

Nowhere in China is the craving for metals more evident than Yongkang. This landlocked city in southeastern China's Zhejiang province calls itself the hardware capital. With a population of about 530,000, Yongkang boasts about 10,000 hardware businesses, nearly all of them private family enterprises.

Yongkang is legendary for itinerant tinkerers who mended pots and pans for a living. Today, countless homes, storefronts, junkyards and factories carry on that tradition, buying, selling and recycling more than 600,000 tons of scrap metal every year. The city's streets teem with tractors, trucks and bicycles hauling metal rods, coils and sheets.

Many head for Yongkang's scrap-metal market, an outdoor bazaar slightly smaller than the Los Angeles Convention Center. More than 400 garage-sized storefronts are filled with scrap collected around the world: crushed beer cans from Japan, fuel pumps and used car parts from the West, air-conditioning condensers from northeastern China.

On a recent afternoon, Ying Sufang sat stooped outside Store No. 287, meticulously separating printers' lead pieces no bigger than grains of rice.

The lead was shipped to her by her husband, who was foraging for scrap about 1,000 miles away — not far from the Vietnam border. Last year, Ying and her husband earned more than $7,000, their best take in 10 years.

"That's not bad," the 44-year-old said.

But it has come at a price. Ying, who is unrelated to Ying Guangwu, grumbles about the grimy, sometimes punishing work.

She has never become accustomed to her husband being away for long stretches. He has been gone for the last month, leaving her and their middle-school daughter at home.

"I chose this business because 60% to 70% of people in our village are doing this," she said. "This is how we make money…. I don't know what else to do."

Across the Pacific, George Adams is also cashing in on one of the greatest commodity booms in modern times. He is the president of Adams Steel, a scrap metal dealer in Anaheim that shreds used cars, washing machines and dryers down to the size of a wallet. The crushed metal is loaded onto trucks and containers that are shipped to traders around the world. Much of it winds up in China, in the hands of millions of scrap traders like those in Yongkang.

Adams' annual sales now exceed $100 million. Last year he bought scrap yards in Southern California, installed more shredding equipment and added 70 employees to boost his workforce to 500.

He has a lot of competition. Thieves have ripped apart ballpark fences in Des Moines and stripped copper from cathedral domes in Cleveland. In Buenos Aires, people have made away with bronze plaques on boulevards and copper wires from utility companies. And in England, India and Malaysia, tens of thousands of manhole covers have vanished.

"They're taking copper out of brand-new houses in Southern California," says Carl Clark, Adams Steel's plant manager. Such stolen copper pipes and wires don't need to be recycled; they are bundled together and sold to brokers who send them all over the world, where they fetch triple the prices of a few years ago.

"An actual copper penny today is worth more as scrap than its face value," Clark says.

The crime spree has resulted in deaths as people have fallen down manholes, and has caused such concern that countries like Argentina placed restrictions on the export of scrap metals.

The price of iron ore, a major ingredient in steel, jumped 71% in the last year alone, sharply cutting steel producers' margins. But with China accounting for one-fourth of the world's steel production last year — and half of all iron ore imports — Beijing is demanding that iron ore exporters put a lid on prices.

"The Chinese are flexing their market power," says Ruth Stroppiana, an economist at Moody's economy.com in Sydney, Australia. "The China factor," she adds, "has been absolutely huge" for Australia, Brazil, Chile and other resource-rich nations.

Chinese towns such as Yongkang also have benefited, although the metal boom has taken a heavy toll on China's environment and workers. Pollution-spewing metal factories have tainted rivers and land.

In Yongkang, officials have shut down dozens of the 1,000-plus smelters in the city, say plant managers. Authorities also have toughened rules governing imported scrap metals — prohibiting car motors containing oil, for example, says Du Huanzheng, a metals expert at Zhejiang Institute of Industry and Commerce.

Still, China's imports of scrap metal surged nearly 30% last year, Du says, and the trend is not likely to abate soon, least of all in Yongkang.

Ying Zhiang's family has been in the scrap metal business for several generations. He is no relation to Ying Guangwu or to Ying Sufang. About 20 years ago, Ying collected scrap as he traveled the country fixing scales for merchants. "Even though products can get old and useless, the metal in them still has value," he says.

Now 52, Ying runs Yongya Copper Industrial Co., one of China's leading copper producers and recyclers. His Yongkang-based company ships 100 tons of the metal a day. He buys most of his scrap copper from dealers in town and the nearby port city of Taizhou, which is also known as Linhai.

In Yongya's warehouse, workers in red caps moved bales of scrap wire, and others in street clothes picked up small bits of loose copper on the ground. Ying says he is considering collecting scrap himself again, because prices have soared beyond belief. A decade ago, he was buying a metric ton of copper in China for about $625. Now it costs about 10 times that amount.

"The numbers are out of this world," he says.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

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An informative read.

Thanks for posting.

China is grabbing all the natural and scrap resources it can, from oil to metals, to fuel it's growth. I doubt we will ever see metal and oil prices come back down to pre-2004 levels...it comes down to supply and demand. Add in the demand from India for it's infrastructure and it's growth and you start to understand these price increases.

shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug

Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug

The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles).

Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles).

That place was still in operation when I lived in Upland. I drove past that place hundreds of times. It was huge.

Check this out.

It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company.

ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/

Can you believe that? What a fucking joke.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles). That place was still in operation when I lived in Upland. I drove past that place hundreds of times. It was huge. Check this out. It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company. ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/ Can you believe that? What a fucking joke.

my Dad worked their as an engineer when I was a little kid and I remember the huge stacks emitting all that wonderful smelling toxic exhaust. I actually liked the smell of it. The huge flames kissing the clouds, the noise coming from the factory; toured the plant several times and used to eat with my dad at the employee cafeteria.

He died before the chinese bought part of the place...

Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles).

WAS LOCATED.

Think NASCAR.
Fontucky.

One of the largest steel plants in the world once stood at this site in Fontana.



The plant was originally built here in World War Two, to supply steel for Kaiser's wartime shipyards, which produced hundreds of ships on the west coast in just a few years.

The plant, built inland from the coast to stay out of the range of enemy fire from the sea, was upgraded and modernized after the war, with a new 23 story high, $287 million plant built as recently as the 1980's.

After three years of use, this most modern plant was bought by the Chinese at bargain basement rates. A team of 300 Chinese workers came to Fontana in 1993 to disassemble it, and ship it to China, where it was reassembled.

Kaiser is no longer in the steel business.

Portions of the site have been redeveloped, but portions of the old plant remain as ruins, mostly concrete slabs.

Part of the site was turned into a major  racetrack called the California Speedway, and part of the steel plant is still producing steel, operated by California Steel Industries, which processes steel that comes in from South America and elsewhere.

Though a fraction of the tens of thousands that worked at Kaiser Steel in the old days, at 1,000 employees, this is still one of the largest steel operations on the West Coast.

As one of the few remaining heavy industry sites near Los Angeles, the site is a common filming location.  It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II.

The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company.  

The Chinese have been buying up scrap metal like muthafuckas for the past 10 years, it's just accelerated in the past 4.

Now why did Japan declare war on the US?  

And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone.

Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente.
Anyone ever have to deal with them?
The term "shitstain" comes to mind.

Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind.

I have insurance through them.

Kaiser still owns some copper mines.

They screwed a good portion of their workers back in the mid 80's. I mean screwed. Fontana was a ghost town after it closed. Guys that worked at the old mill were moving out or trying to get jobs at macdonolds...

The retirees were screwed, too. They had some pension buyout, I can't remember.

Quoted: Now why did Japan declare war on the US?

Because they hated our freedom?

I like your point, but the difference between WWII Japan and present-day China is that Japan imported most everything it needed for its war machine. As a world economic power, China owns plenty of domestic and international sources of strategic resources. The only resource they don't own directly is oil, but they seems to be making an attempt at securing it recently.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles). That place was still in operation when I lived in Upland. I drove past that place hundreds of times. It was huge. Check this out. It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company. ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/ Can you believe that? What a fucking joke. my Dad worked their as an engineer when I was a little kid and I remember the huge stacks emitting all that wonderful smelling toxic exhaust. I actually liked the smell of it. The huge flames kissing the clouds, the noise coming from the factory; toured the plant several times and used to eat with my dad at the employee cafeteria. He died before the chinese bought part of the place...

Sorry about your dad. Did you live in that area? I grew up in West Covina, Covina, and later in Upland as a young adult.

Do you remember that big gravel pit off the 10 freeway right just west of the 215? Is that still in operation?

Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind.

At one time these companies were one of the same, I believe the medical part was started to help the workers of the manufacturing arm.  After WWII, they split off and parted company.  The current Kaiser Permanente Medical Group has nothing to do with the non-medical company, other than name.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles). That place was still in operation when I lived in Upland. I drove past that place hundreds of times. It was huge. Check this out. It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company. ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/ Can you believe that? What a fucking joke. my Dad worked their as an engineer when I was a little kid and I remember the huge stacks emitting all that wonderful smelling toxic exhaust. I actually liked the smell of it. The huge flames kissing the clouds, the noise coming from the factory; toured the plant several times and used to eat with my dad at the employee cafeteria. He died before the chinese bought part of the place... Sorry about your dad. Did you live in that area? I grew up in West Covina, Covina, and later in Upland as a young adult. Do you remember that big gravel pit off the 10 freeway right just west of the 215? Is that still in operation?

Lived in LA, but we had rentals in the area. So, we spent time there.

Yes, I remember the huge pits. Not sure if still there, but its the 15fwy not the 215.

The street south of the mill San bernardion ave, I think between Cherry and Etiwanda was a trip. It w as one giant rust stain.

Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind.

What the hell do people do for jobs down there now?

I worked at GD in Pomona for a while, but that closed and really screwed up Pomona. And than the steel mill loss killed Fontana.

There used to be hundreds of little businesses down their to support the big companies like Kasier and GD. I remember working at a machine shop in Pomona that had so much work they had to turn it away.

Quoted: Quoted: Now why did Japan declare war on the US?   Because they hated our freedom? I like your point, but the difference between WWII Japan and present-day China is that Japan imported most everything it needed for its war machine. As a world economic power, China owns plenty of domestic and international sources of strategic resources. The only resource they don't own directly is oil, but they seems to be making an attempt at securing it recently.

Yes, oil was the big one, but so was scrap iron.
Just think if Japan had set up a bunch of multinational corporations and had invested heavily in the USA before they attacked Pear Harbor....

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: shoulda seen them when they tore down part of the kaiser steel mill and hauled it back to china.it was like ants on a dead bug The Kaiser steel plant is where the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day was filmed.  The plant is located in the city of Fontana Calif(a town about 50 miles east of Los Angeles). That place was still in operation when I lived in Upland. I drove past that place hundreds of times. It was huge. Check this out. It was used as a location for the film Black Rain, and for the Schwarzenegger showdown with the cyborg in Terminator II. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company. ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA3008/ Can you believe that? What a fucking joke. my Dad worked their as an engineer when I was a little kid and I remember the huge stacks emitting all that wonderful smelling toxic exhaust. I actually liked the smell of it. The huge flames kissing the clouds, the noise coming from the factory; toured the plant several times and used to eat with my dad at the employee cafeteria. He died before the chinese bought part of the place... Sorry about your dad. Did you live in that area? I grew up in West Covina, Covina, and later in Upland as a young adult. Do you remember that big gravel pit off the 10 freeway right just west of the 215? Is that still in operation?

Environmental reasons is why Kaiser Steel was having such a problem with the mill.  The plant dates back to the mid 1920s or so, and the company didn't want to invest in any new equipment to eliminate or reduce the air pollution, mainly because they could really afford it, just too much competition from foriegn steel mills, and they also labor problems.  The current mill is a shadow of the old mill.

Quoted: Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind. What the hell do people do for jobs down there now? I worked at GD in Pomona for a while, but that closed and really screwed up Pomona. And than the steel mill loss killed Fontana. There used to be hundreds of little businesses down their to support the big companies like Kasier and GD. I remember working at a machine shop in Pomona that had so much work they had to turn it away.

Cali steel still employs quite a few. Oregon steel is there and a few smaller ones and Tamco is around the corner. The railroad employs a lot of people. Lot of people commute to LA or elsewhere. Fontana has turned into little mexico. The great pawn shops there once littered sierra ave are now .99 cent stores or crap stores.

Quoted: Lived in LA, but we had rentals in the area. So, we spent time there. Yes, I remember the huge pits. Not sure if still there, but its the 15fwy not the 215.

Really? That's just past the airport. I thought they were more east than that -- closer to San Bernardino. It was near some kind of railroad switching station, I remember that.

The street south of the mill San bernardion ave, I think between Cherry and Etiwanda was a trip. It w as one giant rust stain.

Great.

Quoted: . . Cali steel still employs quite a few. Oregon steel is there and a few smaller ones and Tamco is around the corner. The railroad employs a lot of people. Lot of people commute to LA or elsewhere. Fontana has turned into little mexico. The great pawn shops there once littered sierra ave are now .99 cent stores or crap stores.

That is too bad, I used to drive through/pass Fontana years ago(circa mid-60s) with my dad to the High Desert Barstow/Victorivilla area.  That area used to be white middle-class.

I know.  That's why I own shares of Mittal Steel and Alcoa.

Quoted: Just think if Japan had set up a bunch of multinational corporations and had invested heavily in the USA before they attacked Pear Harbor....

Exactly. Which makes the current situation so much more insidious. I wonder how many tanks and rifles are being produced with all that steel as compared to lawnmowers...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind. What the hell do people do for jobs down there now? I worked at GD in Pomona for a while, but that closed and really screwed up Pomona. And than the steel mill loss killed Fontana. There used to be hundreds of little businesses down their to support the big companies like Kasier and GD. I remember working at a machine shop in Pomona that had so much work they had to turn it away. Cali steel still employs quite a few. Oregon steel is there and a few smaller ones and Tamco is around the corner. The railroad employs a lot of people. Lot of people commute to LA or elsewhere. Fontana has turned into little mexico. The great pawn shops there once littered sierra ave are now .99 cent stores or crap stores.

Well, Fontana was never known for its scenery.

Those are some mind-numbing commutes. I used to work with a Latina hottie at GD who commuted from Lake Arrowhead. Lake Arrowhead is great, but she was just insane. In the winter, she was fighting snow and ice every day.

Quoted: Quoted: . . Cali steel still employs quite a few. Oregon steel is there and a few smaller ones and Tamco is around the corner. The railroad employs a lot of people. Lot of people commute to LA or elsewhere. Fontana has turned into little mexico. The great pawn shops there once littered sierra ave are now .99 cent stores or crap stores. That is too bad, I used to drive through/pass Fontana years ago(circa mid-60s with my dad to the High Desert Barstow/Victorivilla area.  That area used to be white middle-class.

Me too, at about the same time. We used to fly model rockets up at Lucerne Dry Lake in the late 1960's. They still fly up there.

www.rocstock.org/lucerne.html

Quoted: Cali steel still employs quite a few.

About 1,000 people vice the 10,000+ that Kaiser employed.

Speaking of gravel pits, anyone fished Anaheim lake, Santa Ana lake or Corona Lake?

Quoted: Quoted: And it show just how far down the shitter America's manufacturing base has gone. Kaiser Steel is now Kaiser Permanente. Anyone ever have to deal with them? The term "shitstain" comes to mind. At one time these companies were one of the same, I believe the medical part was started to help the workers of the manufacturing arm.  After WWII, they split off and parted company.  The current Kaiser Permanente Medical Group has nothing to do with the non-medical company, other than name.

I stand corrected.
They still suck though.