From Tesla cars to underwear, metal makers seek new markets

London

THE world's biggest mining companies would like you to put more zinc in your zucchini and copper in your socks and dental floss.

While builders and manufacturers remain the biggest metals users, producers are confronting the end of a Chinese industrial boom that fuelled surging global demand and prices. For more than a decade, the country dominated markets as it sucked up raw materials to build factories, homes and power lines. Now, with the industrial engine cooling, mine owners are looking for new uses to spur sales such as in fertiliser, electric-car batteries and salmon cages.

"Traditional demand isn't going to fall off a cliff," said Paul Gait, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in London. "B…