If the government chooses to sell the scrap to a domestic recycling company, the rare earth material will be usable once more for that country. This must be left to governments to decide upon, to reflect their individual needs. The numbers utilized in the chart are hypothetical, designed to illustrate an example of the implementation of this process, and not necessarily reflect actual percentages or relative prices. The chart on the left describes a method in which this stockpile program can be implemented. To encourage the donation of these scraps to the stockpile, each government will pay the contributors a percentage of the value of the scraps. The stockpile program will be based on the donation of strategic-metal-containing products from individuals and companies to their respective governments. Once a stockpile is started, the governments can sell the material to a company with recycling capabilities domestically or internationally. To encourage individuals to contribute to this stockpile, the program can follow the model of "cash-for-clunkers." The governments can offer incentives such as tax breaks to contributors. This stockpile will accumulate through the donation of used electronics, cars, and other strategic-metal-containing products from individuals and companies. While stockpiles of the raw, pure strategic metal resources owned by individual countries may not be a good idea, as they would exist at the expense of equitable global access to these materials, stockpiles of already manufactured products containing these metals would be very beneficial.Įach government interested in a supply of strategic metals can begin a stockpile of manufactured, strategic-metal-containing products. However, taking trade and global distribution into account, stockpiling can bring on many undesirable economic effects. For individual countries, this is often an excellent technique because it allows the country to ensure their own private supply. What Mission 2016 proposes is to implement a stockpile of devices containing strategic elements until they can be viably recycled.Ī stockpile is an accumulation of some desired material created to ensure future supply. Consequently, they are simply discarded under the status quo, wasting many resources that could be potentially be reused in the future. These elements are present in such small quantities that they cannot be recycled in an economically viable manner with current technology. Many electronic devices, such as cell phones, contain very small amounts of strategic elements.
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