Japan is treating old phones and motors as a mineral supply.
Japan's Environment Ministry has allocated 37.9 billion yen, about 238 million dollars, in its fiscal 2026 budget to build out infrastructure for recycling rare earth elements from retired electronics and industrial equipment, according to Nikkei Asia. Japan calls this practice urban mining.
The strategic logic is direct. China refines most of the world's rare earths and supplies most high-performance magnets, and Japan has been exposed to Chinese export restrictions since 2010. Recovering neodymium and dysprosium from discarded EV motors, air conditioning compressors, and consumer electronics gives Japan a domestic supply line that does not depend on any single foreign supplier.
The subsidy specifically targets the economics gap, since recycled rare earths still have to compete against cheaper Chinese primary supply.
Turning a security vulnerability into a case for recycling infrastructure is a pattern worth watching. The same logic applies to any country dependent on a concentrated supply chain.
Source: asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/su...