NKK Group to Launch PET Bottle
|
 |
|
| Bale dismantling equipment |
NK Kankyo Corporation, NKK's leading environmental recycling subsidiary, began commercial operations of its PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle recycling plant on April 1. Construction of the facility was finished in late March in the Mizue area of NKK's Keihin Works.
Japan's Container and Packaging Recycling Law requires local governments to separate PET bottles from other waste and send them to the Japan Container and Packaging Recycling Association, where companies bid on their recycling. The process entails crushing, sorting and washing to produce PET resin flakes. The flakes are then sold to companies that manufacture PET sheets used in egg cartons, polyester fibers and other recycled products.
This resource-recycling business has several features
that are attractive to NK Kankyo:
1) As the NKK Group continues to diversify its recycling business, the
new plant will help expand its container and packaging processing. The
company considers it extremely important to be a player in the resource-recycling
field.
2) The company will be able to create a "zero-emission" recycling
system by utilizing residuals from the recycling process as an iron
ore reducing agent in NKK's blast furnaces. NKK is already implementing
the commercial system to recycle waste plastics for BF feed.
3) The Keihin area (Tokyo-Yokohama) generates large volumes of used
PET bottles but does not have any large-scale recycling facilities.
The new NK Kankyo plant will contribute to the community by recycling
PET bottles locally.
4) Ties with Mitsui & Co., which owns a 20% stake in NK Kankyo,
will ensure that a stable amount of recycled PET resin flakes are sold,
making the venture commercially viable.
The new ¥1.4 billion PET bottle recycling plant has an annual processing capacity of 10,000 tons (approx. 200 million bottles), with a crushing capacity of 48 tons a day. The plant will process (by sorting, crushing and washing) collected bottles, producing about 7,000-8,000 tons of recycled flakes a year.
 |
|
| Recycled PET resin flakes |
Several companies have entered the PET bottle recycling business since 1997, the year the new recycling law took effect. As a new participant in this business, NK Kankyo will collaborate with parent-company NKK to improve the quality of PET resin flakes and enhance the basis of this operation.
Already actively involved in the recycling of waste plastics for blast furnace feed, the NKK Group has now entered the market for recycling PET bottles. It will continue to promote PFI (private finance initiative) processing operations already underway in Sendai (NK Kankyo) and Nagoya (a joint venture with IHI), seeking to establish them as core businesses within the new JFE Group that will be launched this October.
