Forging Ahead for the 15th Five-Year Plan · Private Enterprises Take Responsibility: Jiangxi Baotai Group Writes the Green Development Answer Sheet for the World Copper Capital

Time：2026-10-24 14:21:44 Source：大江新闻-赣商频道 View Rate：147

Summary：Rooted in the "World Copper Capital", Jiangxi Baotai Group empowers the high-quality development of the recycled metals industry through circular smart manufacturing.

Source: Dajiang News - Gan Shang Channel  Author: You Jialong | Original

By You Jialong

In Yujiang, Yingtan, at the industrial park of Jiangxi Baotai Non-ferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiangxi Baotai Group), truckloads of waste copper and aluminum raw materials go through intelligent sorting, precision smelting and intensive deep processing, and are transformed into high-end new copper and aluminum materials for transformers, new energy vehicles and electronic communications.

A local leading enterprise with more than 20 years of experience in the recycled non-ferrous metals sector, Jiangxi Baotai Group adheres to the core philosophy of “making full use of every resource and turning waste into treasure”. It has built a fully closed-loop industrial chain covering “collection – primary processing – deep processing – solid waste recycling – supporting green energy”. The group processes over 800,000 tonnes of recycled metals annually with annual revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan. Through vivid practices of technological innovation, digital empowerment and circular development, it has become a remarkable green industry calling card in Yingtan’s drive to build the “World Copper Capital”.

Technological Breakthrough: Moving Beyond Manual Hammer Sorting and Reshaping the Essence of the Recycled Metals Industry through Sci-Tech Innovation

The recycled metals sector has long been labelled a labour-intensive industry. How to break the sector’s predicament of low added value and extensive processing and embark on a technology-intensive development path has been a key issue for Baotai Group.

A turning point in its development came with a bold cross-sector technological integration. Around 2009, the traditional practice of manually sorting materials with hammers suffered from low efficiency and greatly restricted the expansion of production capacity. Jiangxi Baotai Group introduced the fully automatic crushing technology proven in the steel industry into recycled aluminium processing, completely phasing out the traditional hammer sorting method and laying a solid foundation for refined development of recycled metals processing.

Beyond process innovation, Jiangxi Baotai Group stays committed to innovation-driven growth. It has set up a national postdoctoral research station, carried out industry-university-research collaborative research with universities including Nanchang University and Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, and established a Research Institute for Recycled Metals Industrialization to tackle key technical challenges in the recycled resources sector. The enterprise undertakes a national key R&D programme project on “Key Technologies and Equipment for Circular Economy”. It holds 27 invention patents, 172 utility model patents and 18 design patents, continuously translating research achievements into product competitiveness. In the copper processing workshop, red copper rods made from recycled feedstock are further processed into high-end copper materials specially for power transformers, with a stable product qualification rate of over 99.2%. This frees recycled metals from the stereotype of being “low-end raw materials” and integrates them into the supply chain of high-end equipment manufacturing.

Digital and Intelligent Leadership: Building a National Outstanding Smart Factory and Setting the Industry Price Benchmark

In 2025, Jiangxi Baotai Group was awarded the title of National Outstanding Smart Factory. This marks a major breakthrough in China’s recycled non-ferrous metals industry and signifies that the enterprise’s smart manufacturing capacity has joined the top tier of the national sector.

Stepping into the Digital Achievements Exhibition Centre, a large big-data dashboard for recycled resources collection refreshes in real time, displaying total metal procurement volume, inbound and outbound inventory details and national logistics trajectories at a glance. The group has independently developed an intelligent trading and logistics scheduling platform for recycled non-ferrous metals and launched the “Baotai Cloud” mini-program. It has formed a fully online business loop covering “reservation – logistics – trading – weighing – quality inspection – settlement”. This has not only reshaped its own production and operation model, but also driven more than 20,000 upstream and downstream suppliers nationwide to carry out intelligent upgrading, fuelling digital transformation across the entire recycling industry.

In the past, freight vehicles from all over the country would often queue up for two to three kilometres outside the factory gate, and drivers had to wait up to four days to unload goods. Now, with the online reservation system, drivers can register for queuing via mobile phones. The weighbridge system operates at 100% automation with weighing error kept below 0.1%. The settlement cycle has been shortened from seven days to three days, delivering a substantial improvement in recycling transaction efficiency.

Digital transformation has strengthened the group’s industry influence. Supported by massive transaction data, the “Baotai Price” has become the benchmark reference price for recycled aluminium alloy and foundry aluminium ingot trading nationwide. Its daily quotation page views reach 100,000. It has earned the industry reputation: “For primary metals, look to London; for recycled metals, look to Baotai”. It effectively curbs inflated and disordered quotations in the market, provides an open and transparent price gauge for the national recycled metals market and supports the standardized development of the industry.

Green Closed Loop: Practicing Full-chain Circularity and Fully Utilizing Industrial Solid Waste

“Make full use of every resource and recreate value from all waste materials.” This is the development philosophy running through the whole production chain of Jiangxi Baotai Group. Its green development extends beyond the processing of core copper and aluminium products to solid waste treatment, water resource utilization, clean energy and other segments.

Aluminium dross, an industrial residue generated in recycled aluminium processing, was added to the Hazardous Waste Catalogue in 2021, and its treatment remains a common challenge for the industry. Through independent research, Jiangxi Baotai Group has developed a combined treatment process of “wet leaching plus pyrometallurgical roasting” and built a specialized aluminium dross treatment workshop. Bags of aluminium dross are conveyed to equipment through sealed pipelines. After multiple treatment procedures, the dross is converted into industrial water purifying agents and eco-friendly construction raw materials, with an aluminium dross resource recovery rate exceeding 98%. Recognized as one of the Top 10 Green and Low-carbon Technology Achievements in China’s recycled resources sector, this technology offers a replicable practical model for the resource utilization of hazardous waste in the industry.

The green and low-carbon concept is also implemented in energy and water management. Rooftops across the plant are fitted with extensive photovoltaic panels, forming a photovoltaic power generation system with a total power output of 235 million kWh, replacing approximately 2,000 tonnes of standard coal each year. The production wastewater recycling system achieves zero liquid discharge. Waste heat recovery technology raises the enterprise’s energy recovery efficiency to 35%. From raw material collection and product processing to solid waste disposal and supporting clean energy, Jiangxi Baotai Group has established a complete, eco-friendly circular industrial loop. Certified as a National Green Factory, it has blazed a trail for manufacturing transformation featuring efficient resource utilization.

Chain Leader’s Mission: Forging Ahead toward High-end, Smart and Green Development to Empower Industrial Cluster Growth

As the chain leader of Jiangxi Province’s key “1269” industrial chain, Jiangxi Baotai Group follows its development blueprint of “One Core Circle, Two Deep-processing Sectors, Three Major Industries and Five Industrial Chains”. Centered on recycled metal collection, it strengthens deep processing of copper and aluminium, develops three major industries covering copper, aluminium and scrap steel, and links up five industrial chains: collection network, primary processing, deep processing, solid waste resource utilization and green energy. While expanding its own strength, the group takes the initiative to lead the whole industrial chain.

Rooted in the industrial hub of Yingtan, the “World Copper Capital”, the group capitalizes on the strengths of the local copper industrial cluster and keeps exploring high-end application scenarios for recycled metals. Its products are closely supplied to strategic emerging industries including new energy, power equipment and electronic information. With new opportunities emerging for circular economy, the recycled non-ferrous metals industry is poised for broad growth.

Looking ahead, Jiangxi Baotai Group states that it will stay committed to the development goals of high-end, smart manufacturing and green transition. It will further scale up R&D investment, continuously upgrade its smart factory, fully tap the potential of solid waste resource utilization, and leverage its exemplary role as a chain leader. By sharing technical expertise and digital models, it will drive small and medium-sized enterprises upstream and downstream to pursue coordinated transformation.

Every piece of scrap metal gets a new lease of life; every circular industrial chain forms a green closed loop. From manual hammer sorting to sci-tech smart manufacturing, from piled waste to treasure reborn, Jiangxi Baotai Group writes with circular smart manufacturing. Rooted in Jiangxi and empowering the “World Copper Capital”, it presents a vivid answer from a Jiangxi enterprise for the high-quality development of the recycled non-ferrous metals industry.

Reviser: Wu Qunzhen

Chief Editor in Charge: Zhang Yan