Japanese Companies Creating Plastics Recycling Operation

Canon Inc, NEC Corp and Fuji Xerox Co are each setting up an internal recycling system to use plastic recovered from their own products as material for new items in an effort to improve the standard of environmental protection operations, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported, without citing sources.

From autumn, Canon will recycle trays used to hold paper recovered from used copiers into material for power-supply boxes for home-use printers made in Thailand. It will export the polystyrene trays to Thailand after processing them by breaking them up and washing them.

Photocopier paper trays made from general-purpose resin have so far had few recycling applications, while high-cost recycled resin has rarely been used in printers due to intense price competition.

The firm aims to recycle 200 metric tons of recycled resin this fiscal year, and about 1,200 metric tons in the following year as a result of increased cooperation between the copier and printer divisions on internal recycling.

NEC aims to begin by fiscal 2005 using plastic recovered in-house in personal computers instead of procuring it from outside firms. It will ship used plastic to its Chinese PC production bases after processing it in Japan.

NEC purchases 150 metric tons of waste plastic from outside firms annually for use in its PCs, while it incinerates most of the 250 metric tons of waste plastic collected by its recycling division, making use only of the heat produced in this process.

It aims to strengthen ties between the design/production division and the recycling division of the firm.

Fuji Xerox has begun a recycling program in which waste plastic recovered from its copiers in Japan is molded into copier parts in South Korea, with the parts then shipped back to Japan. It will expand the program to cover a Chinese unit by the end of this year.