Illustration of flow, stock and recycling of steel in Taiwan

To strategically discuss how steel should be produced, used and recycled, understanding of current and future flow and stock of steel is of high importance. Because steel is used in the society for many years, records in the relevant industries including import and export from the past years are crucial as well as the current up-to-date statistics when illustrating flow and stock of steel in a year. Following the pioneering national flow and stock figures developed in Japan, this paper presents Taiwanese 2006 and 2007 versions of illustration of iron and steel flow, stock, and recycling, as well as list of data sources, estimation method for missing data, prediction method for the future flow and stock and recommendation for future refinement. The methodologies were modified basing on the Japanese method, due to differences in data availability, collection methods and social background of the data. Using a bottom-up approach, stock and obsolete scrap flows are estimated for three major household appliances, i.e. washing machine, refrigerator, and air conditioner. From comparison of the 2006 and 2007 versions, increasing importance of scrap materials in Taiwanese crude steel production and increase of importance of external market can be seen. Increasing the number of steel products covered by bottom up approach and its combination with top-down approach is recommended, as well as the refinement of assumptions from accumulating recorded data to increase completeness of the future versions.