I think regions / steel industries in the region go through phases. I can draw upon my experience with one of the biggest steel manufacturers in India and Europe. SE Asia is going through a phase where most of the steel consumption is met by primary steel, new steel made from blast furnaces consuming iron ore. A lot of that steel is exported but there is a very big domestic market.
The need for secondary steel (made from old steel scraps) will become important in the future for SE Asia. Back in the US, this is already the case.
Primary and Secondary steel have different properties. Secondary steel can not be used for some applications, they can only use Primary. Vice versa, using primary steel for some applications might not be economically feasible for some applications.
Whether it’s a case of nobody knows who owns them, regulatory hurdles, economics of breaking it down, or some other reason, I’ve often wondered why something like entire trains can just sit collecting graffiti after a railroad shuts down.
Does anyone have any insight? Is there not an abundance of material that’s recoverable low hanging fruit compared to creating new? Or is the metal recovered not as useful for chemical/physical reasons?
Where it's borderline, someone owns it and if you steal it you might get found out eventually.
Where it's very profitable, it gets stolen and reprocessed unless guarded (see: copper).
See https://chitransit.org/topic/4239-ex-cnw-pullman-rta-cars-in... for an example.
Someone somewhere has to be making new steel.