Bolivian mining export revenues fell 14.3% year-on-year in 2012, to $2.07 billion, according to preliminary figures from the country´s statistics institute, INE.

2013 is shaping up to continue last year’s story of exchange consolidation, price discovery in Asia and growing ties between east and west, if recent weeks are anything to go by.

International negotiators have concluded a global treaty aimed at reducing mercury pollution and use of mercury in mining and industry, which will be signed in Japan in October.

Eurometrec, the EU scrap recyclers’ federation, has voiced its support for an EU regulation determining when copper scrap ceases to be waste, but remains hopeful that a review of the criteria will address concerns about a controversial foreign material limit.

It was unusual to hear Bureau of International Recycling director-general Francis Veys saying that European secondary copper producers are protectionist, after they lobbied the European Commission to set a very tight limit on the types of scrap that can be considered products, as opposed to waste.

This first part in ten decade-long episodes in the life of Metal Bulletin is a short one – 1913-1919.