Fire Prevention and Export Management of Mixed Metal Scrap

Over one million tons of mixed metal scrap is annually exported from Japan to China for recycling purpose. Mixed metal scrap usually contains miscellaneous electric and electronic equipment including hazardous substances and sometimes causes fire. Regarding fires of mixed metal scrap, there are several cases of fire in ports or offshore in Japan recently. Fire incidents are often found at various stockyards as well. In spite of our investigations on some fire sites, the exact cause of the fire is hardly determined. We assume that the fire proceeds in two stages: fire breakout and fire spread. Fire breakout may be caused by lead acid battery, ignition from physical impact between metals, heat accumulation and/or others. Fire spread is easily caused by combustion of oil, plastic and other organic materials which contained in mixed metal scrap. Regarding hazardous substances control, Basel Convention and related domestic law restricts the exportation of recyclable resources when the level of hazardous substances contained in mixed metal scrap exceeds the criteria. However, since the mixed metal scrap is composed of heterogeneous materials, without detail chemical analysis of hazardous substances level, customs inspectors cannot judge hazardous waste or not. Therefore, we propose to create some negative list of electric and electronic equipment for simple clarification for export control.