There's an article in today's London Times about a city in England that had 1,000's of manhole covers stolen and sold for scrap (probably sold to China). It turns out that the price for scrap metal has been steadily rising because China keeps industrializing on an exponential scale. Because they don't have a long history of industrialization they don't have the scrap metal reserves that most Western countries have. This easily explains the recent rise in scrap metal prices and it could explain the rise in steel prices. They may be communists, but 1 billion Chinese can still affect supply and demand. See below for the Times article. I don't have a link, but if you go to
www.timesonline.co.uk you can search for "manhole" and it's there.
March 13, 2004
Police look into Great Drain Robbery
By Christine Buckley and Simon de Bruxelles
Manhole covers are disappearing at an alarming rate as thieves exploit China’s industrial boom
AN ECONOMIC boom in southern China; mysterious holes appearing in the streets of Gloucester, Grantham, Moldova and Shanghai — and scrap metal dealers have never looked so well fed.
This bizarre sequence of events is linked by an apparently random series of thefts of manhole covers from streets around the world as thieves cash in on the soaring price of scrap metal. Some in the metal recycling industry call it the great Chinese takeaway, or the Great Drain Robbery. Police, as they say, are looking into it.
But the theft of more than 80 manhole covers from the streets of Gloucester is no joke for local residents stuck in traffic jams or gingerly stepping round the holes in their roads. The audacious robbery is likely to cost local taxpayers at least £55,000. Many of the replacement covers have to be specially made at up to £700 each.
A spate of similar thefts across the country in recent weeks is now being linked to the economic boom in China, which has pushed the price of scrap metal to record levels.
In just two streets in the north of Gloucester, 26 manhole and drain covers were stolen overnight this week. More than 150 covers have been reported missing from Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk in recent weeks, leaving holes up to 3 sq ft in the middle of the road.
The thieves who prised them up may get as little as £7.50 each for their late-night labours. But the drain covers are still easy pickings. One Gloucestershire scrap dealer, who asked not to be named, admitted it was unlikely that the thieves would have much difficulty selling their haul.
He said: “The Chinese are desperate for it. It will get melted down, cut into 2ft lengths and shipped off to China so it can come back as washing machines.†Britain is now the second-biggest exporter of scrap steel in the world after the US.
With prices soaring, the business is expected to continue to thrive. It is the much-lamented emasculation of manufacturing industry that has largely fuelled the growth.
With its early embrace of industrialisation and post-industrial decline, Britain has a huge supply of unwanted iron ripe for profitable export. Britons also buy and discard plenty of heavy-duty goods such as cars, fridges and cookers.
Scrap prices have spiralled from £40 a tonne in 2000 to between £100 and £120 a tonne now and exports have risen from 4.4 million tonnes in 2000 to 7.2 million tonnes last year. China, which is racing from agriculture to a fully industrialised economy, has precious little of its own scrap because it does not have the manufacturing legacy of the West nor a bank of used consumer goods to recycle.
The economic boom is having a huge impact on all raw material prices as the country sucks in vast amounts of iron ore and coke for steelmaking, building materials and energy resources. Last year its industrial output grew by 19 per cent, with heavy industry surging 9 per cent.
Steve Mackrell, operations director at the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau, predicted that scrap prices would continue to rise. He said: “Scrap is finite. We only throw away so many old buildings, machines and cars.â€
The result was gridlock on the streets of Gloucester as motorists tried to negotiate gaping holes in the road. The cast iron covers, each weighing between 8kg and 16kg, were lifted overnight. Police believe there were at least three men, probably dressed to look like council workers, using a flatbed lorry.
Forty-eight manhole and drain covers were stolen from 30 streets in the north of the city alone on Wednesday night. Two streets, Lansdown Road and Fircroft Road, between them lost 26 cast iron covers. Similar disappearances were reported near by in Tewkesbury and the Forest of Dean, as well as in villages around the city.
Frank Heggs, Gloucester’s engineering manager, warned members of the public to watch their step. He said: “Each cover will be worth around £7.50 at a scrap merchants, so for a night’s work the people that did this will get about £600 but we’ve been left with a bill for thousands.†The council is taking the precaution of making sure the replacements are “theft-proof†with hinges so they can be lifted but not removed.
The raid on Gloucester is the latest in a series of similar thefts. Last month Cambridgeshire County Council had to replace more than 150 covers taken over the course of a few days. Tony King, Cambridgeshire highways supervisor, said the cost of replacing them was taking money from other road improvements.
He said: “The cost of replacing the covers is money that could be spent repairing potholes or making road improvements. It is very dangerous, not only to motorists but also to pedestrians walking up the verge or across the road in the dark. They could quite easily fall down the hole and break a leg.â€
More than £50,000 of covers have vanished in north Norfolk since the start of the year in St Germans, King’s Lynn and Downham Market.
But the thefts are relatively small compared to those reported in China itself.
In the space of 45 days this year, 1,826 manhole covers were reported stolen in Shanghai. Eight people who fell into uncovered drains were drowned, including a woman in her 80s and a four-year-old boy.
HOLE TRUTH
* First manhole covers date from the 1850s
* “Manhole†was first used for access holes between the decks of the (all-male) sailing ships
* New York has more than 600,000
* In America, attempts have been made to rename them “peoplhole coversâ€
edited to change spelling mistake