The Mitsubishi Materials Group is a complex corporate entity encompassing a wide range of technologies and expertise, from resources upstream to materials midstream to processed products downstream. We have continued to make the most of those capabilities on a Group-wide scale, in an effort to establish a recycling-oriented business model based on recovering resources from a wide range of waste products.
We strive to create cyclical value chains in each of our businesses, so that resources and materials are processed into products and then recycled back into materials. This also helps to promote recycling-oriented social systems (Circular Economy).
We will achieve growth throughout the value chain to expand resource recycling. We will achieve this by leveraging our strength in advanced dismantling and separation technologies in the home appliance recycling business, along with recycling technologies in the smelting business, expanding the range of items to which these technologies are applied, the regions in which we operate, and the scale of operations.
In the recycling of metal resources, we will recover used or discarded products, disassemble or separate them, input the materials into smelting or other processes to extract useful metal elements, then process or fabricate those elements into high-performance materials and products that will be supplied to the market.
In this way, we will design and build a circulatory system for resources through “veins” that circulate resources, “arteries” that supply high-performance materials and products, and once again through “veins” via the market. At the same time, the Renewable Energy business will supply the renewable energy-based power it has generated to the entire business, contributing to progress in reducing greenhouse gases on the way to achieving carbon neutrality.

Our unique Mitsubishi Continuous Copper Smelting and Converting Process (The Mitsubishi Process) continuously produces blister copper from copper concentrate and recycled raw materials by connecting a series of three furnaces with pipes. As the required facilities are compact and help save energy and reduce costs, they have an exceptionally low environmental impact and produce a copper manufacturing process renowned for its high efficiency.

• Capacity to treat large volumes of waste
• Detoxification of waste products
• No secondary waste (extending life span of final disposal sites)

Using copper concentrate from environmentally friendly copper mines and leveraging the competitive edge of the Mitsubishi Continuous Copper Smelting and Converting Process, we operate a recycling business that boasts world-leading processing capacity, thus ensuring the steady supply of cleaner non-ferrous metal materials to society. While copper and precious metals grow more important reflecting various shifts such as EVs, IT, and decarbonized society, we fulfill our responsibility to supply materials with environmental considerations, thus contributing to the development of society and realization of a sustainable society.

Tungsten, the main raw material used in cemented carbide tools, is a type of rare metal considered politically important for ensuring stable supply. Tungsten ore mines are unevenly distributed in some countries and regions, and there are risks of sharply rising prices and availability issues due to instability in international relations. We will actively promote the recycling of used cemented carbide tools and continue to ensure the stable supply of tungsten in the future.

Volume of scrap processed

We manufacture a range of fluorine compounds at the Group company Mitsubishi Materials Electronic Chemicals Co., Ltd., including materials for use in semiconductor manufacturing, flame retardant and antistatic materials, and hydrofluoric acid.
Since the fiscal year ended March 2007, we have been engaged in the recycling of fluorine resources in which we recover calcium fluoride waste emitted by companies using fluorine compounds and recycle it back into fluorine resources that can be used as alternative raw materials for fluorite. We will promote the recycling of fluorine resources through further technical innovation.

Waste containing rare metals contains such a high percentage of rare metals that it is possible to extract them more efficiently than obtaining metals from natural resources. A prime example is tungsten, the main raw material used in cemented carbide products. Making the most of the Mitsubishi Materials Group’s comprehensive capabilities as a manufacturer, from raw materials through to finished products, we are currently focusing on recycling used cemented carbide products in an effort to secure stable supplies of raw materials.

Using a burning process that reaches temperatures of 1,450°C, the Group's cement plants detoxify and make effective use of industrial waste and other difficult-to-treat materials without generating any secondary waste. As well as using substances such as coal ash, construction sludge, sludge, incineration fly ash, copper slag byproducts from copper smelters, and gypsum as the raw materials of cement, we also turn materials such as waste plastics, waste tires and wood waste back into cement, by using them as a source of thermal energy.