Founded as Asahi Chemical Laboratory.
Started silver recycling business from photographic fixing solutions. The photography industry expanded significantly along with the rapid economic growth, and the demand for silver increased in industries related to photosensitive materials such as commercial printing and medical industries.
Introduced uniquely developed electrolytic silver recycling equipment, realizing efficient recycling of highly pure silver.

We uniquely developed a compact electrolytic silver recovery device "PLATA", the name of which means "silver" in Spanish. The adopted rental system resulted in an increase in the number of recovery devices being installed in customer's equipment. The recovered amount of silver increased accordingly, and the system soon became our new business model. Later, gold collection equipment "ZIPANG" was developed and the business was further expanded.

With the emergence of digital cameras, the management felt a strong concern over the future of Photosensitive Materials Business, and started a dental business for the necessity of new business.
While at that time gold was the only precious metal appraised and traded for cash on the spot, focus was placed on not only gold but also silver, palladium, and platinum included in dental alloys. A more transparent trading method based on accurate assays with a cutting-edge device and the market price of precious metals was introduced, which was highly regarded by the dental industry.
Since then, our business was diversified into the jewelry, plating, and electronic components fields.

Until then, our Environmental Preservation Business that started from the collection of photographic effluent remained in the field of photosensitive materials. In 1990, aiming at further expansion of business, we entered into other fields of Environmental Preservation Business.
Amid the rising awareness on the environmental issues and the further strengthening environment-related laws and regulations, in response to the situation of wastes not being properly processed at worksites, cultivation of new business was promoted by claiming the necessity of proper treatment of wastes at universities and research institutions.

In order to satisfy the demand of domestic customers for local precious metal scrap recovery associated with their overseas business expansion, in 1994, a local subsidiary was established in Malaysia. Then, establishment of subsidiaries were also held in China, South Korea and Taiwan.

In 1997, the company name was changed to "Asahi Pretec Corp.", and red, blue and green colors are adopted for the corporate logo. Reflecting the corporate slogan, the colors of red, blue, and green represent the fire used in the precious metal business, clean water, and the forest in the environmental preservation business respectively.

In order to respond to the diversifying customer needs in waste treatment, expansion of items for disposal and geographical areas for service provision progressed through M&A.

In 2009, the corporate structure was changed to a holding company, and the corporate logo incorporated a spiral shape while maintaining the basic colors. The motif of the new logo signifies our contribution to the recycling society and corporate growth and vitality.

Asahi Refining joined the Group through M&A of a gold & silver refining companies in North America. Global expansion of the group has accelerated beyond Japan and Asia.

Asahi Refining