Joint Company Recycles 5 Million Home Appliances

Kansai Recycling Systems Co. has recycled five million units of specified home appliances in the seven years since the company started operations, it was announced on March 17, 2008. The specified home appliances, which include television sets, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners, must be recycled under the Law for the Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances. The company was jointly established to recycle such appliances by seven major Japanese manufacturers of household appliances: Sharp Corp., Mitsubishi Materials Corp., Sanyo Electric Co., Sony Corp., Hitachi Appliances, Inc., Fujitsu General and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.

The joint company started operation of its main factory in 2001 when the law was enforced, and opened a second factory to deal exclusively with television sets in December 2006 in order to thoroughly recycle appliances through closed-loop recycling.

In the main factory that treats items other than TV sets, the company has been promoting "closed-loop material recycling," which is the recycling and reusing of collected plastic parts from washing machines, refrigerators or air conditioners, since the establishment of the factory. The company plans to increase the use of recycled plastic to about 1,000 tons, up by 200 tons from fiscal 2007 levels.

http://sharp-world.com/corporate/eco/csr_report/2007pdf/sharp40e.pdf
- Home Appliances Recycling Law Sees Steady Progress (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/db/246-e

Posted: 2008/07/25 05:10:28 PM