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Japan
DOWA Eco-System (magnet recovery)
The environmental and recycling arm of Tokyo-listed DOWA Holdings, testing recovery of NdFeB magnets from end-of-life motors: a home-appliance-motor trial in Odate, Akita, since November 2025, and a Ministry of the Environment demonstration for EV drive motors selected in September 2026.
Points to check
Facts from the sources on this page that a reader should weigh before relying on the company's own figures.
- DOWA has published no capacity, tonnage or budget for either magnet recovery effort (DOWA Eco-System release, Nov 20, 2025; DOWA Holdings release, Sept 10, 2026).
- The November 2025 release describes magnet removal after demagnetization as an expected outcome of the test, not a demonstrated result.
- No site, start date or partner has been named for the EV drive-motor demonstration (DOWA Holdings release, Sept 10, 2026).
- Rare earths and magnet recycling are not mentioned in DOWA Holdings' Medium-Term Plan 2027 (May 2025) or its May 2026 management strategy briefing.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1884 — Forerunner Fujita Gumi acquired the Kosaka mine in Akita in 1884; renamed DOWA Mining in 1945; reorganized as the holding company DOWA Holdings in 2006, with DOWA Eco-System as its environmental and recycling subsidiary. The Akita home-appliance recycler Eco-Recycle was established in 1999.
- Headquarters
- Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan (DOWA Eco-System and DOWA Holdings)
- Ownership
- Public via parent: DOWA Holdings Co., Ltd. (TSE Prime: 5714). DOWA Eco-System is wholly owned by DOWA Holdings (per the Sept 10, 2026 release). Major holders of DOWA Holdings not reviewed.
- Stage
- Developing. Demonstration-stage: an appliance-motor magnet recovery test has run at Eco-Recycle in Odate since November 2025, and a Ministry of the Environment-commissioned EV drive-motor demonstration was selected in September 2026. No commercial plant or capacity is announced.
- Listing
- Tokyo: 5714
Listed through its parent or partner. Wholly owned by DOWA Holdings. - Revenue
- ¥745,410 million net sales
Reported, Fiscal year ended March 31, 2026.
Source
Capacity
Each date below links to the document the figure came from. A capacity figure with no source is not on this page.
| What | Figure | Status | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neodymium magnets recovered from home-appliance motors, Eco-Recycle, Odate | No capacity or volume published | Pilot scale | Nov 2025 |
| Rare earth magnets recovered from end-of-life EV drive motors (MoE demonstration) | No capacity, tonnage or budget published | Announced | Sep 2026 |
Narrative
DOWA Eco-System is the environmental and recycling subsidiary of DOWA Holdings, a Tokyo-listed group whose history goes back to the Kosaka mine in Akita Prefecture, acquired by its forerunner Fujita Gumi in 1884; the company took the DOWA Mining name in 1945 and became a holding company in 2006. Its Akita group company Eco-Recycle, established in 1999, dismantles used home appliances in Odate. On November 20, 2025, DOWA Eco-System announced a demonstration test at Eco-Recycle, starting that month, to recover neodymium magnets from the motors of dismantled home appliances: the motors are demagnetized so the magnets can be removed on their own, with the aim of supplying them as raw material for new neodymium magnets. The release gives no volume, duration or end date, and names no partner or subsidy. On September 10, 2026, DOWA Holdings announced that a DOWA Eco-System proposal, a demonstration of rare earth magnet recycling technology for electric-vehicle drive motors, had been selected under the Ministry of the Environment's fiscal 2026 public call for an overall-optimization demonstration of renewable-energy-related products and base materials. The project is to apply DOWA Eco-System's own recovery and sorting technology to drive motors and other parts from end-of-life vehicles, with cooperation from unnamed supply-chain participants; no site, budget, schedule or tonnage was published. DOWA has not announced a commercial magnet recovery plant or a capacity figure, and the magnet work does not appear in its May 2025 Medium-Term Plan 2027 or its May 2026 strategy briefing. Separately, DOWA Holdings announced in July 2026 that its Akita-area Eco-System subsidiaries will be merged into a single company, DOWA ECO-SYSTEM AKITA, effective April 1, 2027. DOWA Holdings reported consolidated net sales of ¥745.4 billion for the year ended March 31, 2026.
Where public sources disagree
- Program period: CE Hub (Sept 15, 2026) says the Ministry of the Environment program runs FY2023-FY2027, while DOWA Holdings' Sept 10, 2026 release describes only a FY2026 public call and gives no project duration.
Sources
- DOWA Holdings: EV drive-motor magnet recycling demo selected by MoE — DOWA Holdings (2026-09-10)
- DOWA Eco-System: neodymium magnet recovery test in Akita — DOWA Eco-System (2025-11-20)
- TECH+ (Mynavi): DOWA EV-motor magnet demonstration — Mynavi TECH+ (2026-09-14)
- CE Hub: DOWA EV drive-motor magnet program — Circular Economy Hub (2026-09-15)
- LOGISTICS TODAY: DOWA EV magnet demo — LOGISTICS TODAY (2026-09-14)
- DOWA Holdings: integration of Akita and Okayama subsidiaries — DOWA Holdings (2026-07-09)
- DOWA Holdings Q1 results (Apr-Jun 2026) — DOWA Holdings via TSE TDnet (2026-08-07)
- DOWA Holdings FY to Mar 2026 results — DOWA Holdings via TSE TDnet (2026-05-14)
- DOWA Holdings management strategy briefing — DOWA Holdings (2026-05-25)
- DOWA Holdings Medium-Term Plan 2027 — DOWA Holdings via TSE TDnet (2025-05-20)
- DOWA detailed history — DOWA Holdings (2026-10-16)
How this page is sourced
Everything here comes from public sources — company filings, annual reports, exchange announcements, government releases and trade press. Every figure is linked to the document it came from and carries the date that document was published, because a capacity number without a date is not a fact, it is a rumor with a decimal point.
What is deliberately absent: material nonpublic information. I have spent more than two decades in this industry and a good deal of what I know about these companies I learned under NDA. Those obligations do not expire and they do not bend for a website. Nothing I have been told in confidence appears here in any form, and nothing on this page — or missing from it — should be read as a signal about what I know privately. I hold NDAs absolutely. It is the reason clients tell me things.
Judgment is the other thing left out on purpose. This page reports what has been published and who published it. Whether a target is credible, whether a ramp will hold, whether a capacity figure survives contact with the plant behind it — that is the work I do for clients, and it does not belong in a free reference page.
Where public sources disagree, I say so rather than picking a winner. Where a figure has not been published, the field says so rather than carrying an estimate. An empty field is information too.
Public filings tell you what a company has said. Whether it holds up is a different question, and the one I get hired to answer.
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