Today, China relies on other countries for its raw material. In 2000, the
country imported 5.1 million tons of scrap, according to the Shanghai Daily. The
average selling price is about $150 a ton, the newspaper said.
Baosteel bought some of the remains of the World Trade Center for $120 a ton,
according to the official Beijing Youth Daily.
The management office at Metal Management in New Jersey, one of the two original
buyers, did not return calls.
But Alan Ratner, president of Metal Management, told the New York Daily News
last month: "This is recycling at its purest form. Our job is to take material
and find a beneficial reuse for it."
Some of the wreckage, Ratner said, will be donated to a memorial.
With nearly 3,000 people having died at the World Trade Center, and weighing the
sensitivity of U.S.-China relations, Baosteel has vehemently denied reports made
by the Beijing Youth Daily that the company might profit from sales of
mini-trade center replicas.
"Baosteel absolutely did not buy scrap with the intention of making arts and
craft," according to a posting on the company's Web site Friday.
Chinese industry experts stress that Baosteel simply made a sound business
decision based on the high quality of the steel from the trade center. Indian
firms also bought scrap from New York's disaster zone.
The trade center wreckage is expected to produce an estimated 300,000 tons of
structural steel. The girders, columns and beams will be melted down and
reforged into building materials in Asia.
Typically, such scrap is used to construct skyscrapers, roads, bridges, cars and
some household appliances.
Much of the steel at the World Trade Center was made in Japan.
"Back in the 1970s, it was considered the finest quality in the world," a
Baosteel official who gave only his last name, Xu, told a local newspaper.
The U.S. scrap-recycling industry is worth at least $20 billion a year. Asia has
been an important market because buyers in the region tend to pay more than U.S.
outlets.
"The global steel industry is now concentrated in China, India, Japan and
Korea," said another Baosteel official, who gave only his last name, Yang. "It's
normal that scrap from the WTC would be exported to China and India. This is a
result of the global division of labor."
_ _ _
Times staff writer John J. Goldman in New York contributed to this report.
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