Teijin to Establish PET "Bottle-to-Bottle" Recycling Business

On April 15, Teijin Limited, a Japanese maker of synthetic fibers, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, inaugurated new facilities to recycle used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles back into polyester raw materials at the Tokuyama Factory of Teijin Fiber in Yamaguchi Prefecture. PET bottles are widely used around the world as beverage containers. The company's new facilities enable the recycling of PET bottles into dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) having the same purity as DMT manufactured from petroleum, but using 30 percent less energy, and reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent.

By October 2003, Teijin will start full operation of a process that converts this DMT into high-grade terephthalic acid (TPA), a raw material for PET resin, making this the world's first complete "bottle-to-bottle" recycling operation for PET bottles. It plans to recycle 60,000 tonnes of PET bottles (equivalent to approximately 2 billion 500-ml PET bottles) annually.

Demand for PET bottles and the volume of collected bottles in Japan are rapidly rising each year. Around 160,000 tonnes of PET bottles were collected in FY 2001, representing a collection rate of 40.1 percent.

http://www.teijin.co.jp/english/news/2001/ebd011219.html

Posted: 2002/10/19 09:25:40 AM
Japanese version