Yongxing County, "Silver Capital of China", located in the southeast of Hunan Province, has no metal deposits in its territory, but it is the largest silver producer in China. The production of bismuth and tellurium accounts for almost half of the world, and the production of platinum, palladium, indium and other metals is in the forefront of China, creating the miracle of "no mining".

Yongxing's rare metals smelting history can be traced back to the early Qing Dynasty and Yongxing people mastered the special process of extracting rare metals such as gold and silver from all kinds of waste materials at that time. In way of more than 300 years of "gold mining", Yongxing people from generation to generation constantly have innovated skills, integrated and upgraded, and effectively promoted the development of rare metals industry from low-end production to high-end development, emerging a hundred billion industry.

The factory slag material waiting for recycling in enterprise warehouse

According to the data, Yongxing County can absorb millions of tons of industrial waste from across China each year by recycling rare metals, and recover 7 tons of gold, 2100 tons of silver, 6500 tons of bismuth, 8 tons of platinum group metals and 200,000 tons of other non-ferrous metals from the "three wastes" each year.

With the achievements of the rare metal industry, Yongxing County has successively won the "Silver Capital of China", the National Circular Economy DemonstrationCounty, the National Industrialization Base of Rare Metals Regeneration and Utilization, the National Urban Mineral Demonstration Base, the National Heavy Metal Hazardous Waste Centralized Treatment Base, the first batch of Special County Economic Key County in Hunan Province and other time-honoured titles.

Zhou Xiong, Party Secretary of the Yongxing Economic Development Zone, introduced that around the circular economy, Yongxing County has constructed the "four major circulation systems" of material circulation within the enterprise, among enterprises in the park, among enterprises in the parks, and in the county base to realize the maximize recycling and utilization of dangerous waste resources.

According to statistics, the county has recovered 18,000 tons of silver, 53 tons of gold, 450 tons of indium and 1.6 million tons of other non-ferrous metals from "three wastes" and "urban minerals" over the past 10 years, being equivalent to reducing more than 200 million tons of high-grade raw ore mining, saving a lot of mineral resources.

He Xiongjun, Director of the Yongxing County Environmental Protection Bureau, said Yongxing County has adopted the model of centralized pollution control in the park, reorganized the county's rare metal enterprises into 30 enterprises by closing down and transferring, and moved into two "National Urban Mineral Demonstration Bases" of Berlin Industrial Park and Taihe Industrial Park, with the waste water treatment center, waste gas centralized treatment station, etc. to eliminate the second pollution, completely changing the situation of "every fire, households smoke" in Yongxing County.

At the same time, Yongxing County has actively guided enterprises to develop and apply advanced production technology, and take the road of deep processing. At present, 13 enterprises in the county have been recognized as national high-tech enterprises, and the bismuth alloy, palladium and other more than 30 deep processing products have been recognized as environmentally friendly, scientific and technological products. With the combination of traditional technology and 3D printing, more than 500 silver products of four series have been developed in this county, which has greatly enhanced the added value of silver.

At present, Yongxing County rare metal industry has formed the industrial cluster with an annual output value of more than 50 billion yuan, which is one of the key support of industrial clusters in Hunan Province. According to the relevant planning of Yongxing County,Yongxing will produce 320,000 tons of rare metals, such as gold and silver, and other non-ferrous metals, with a total industrial output value of more than 100 billion yuan by 2020.