NKK Corporation announced today that it will install a new municipal waste plastics recycling system for blast furnace feed at its Keihin Works' Mizue area. NKK's waste plastics recycling operations have been progressing steadily since the company introduced its first system for recycling industrial waste plastics at the Keihin No. 1 blast furnace in October 1996. At present the Keihin system is annually recycling approximately 40,000 tons of industrial waste plastics received from more than 400 contracted customers across Japan. In view of this progress, NKK decided in October 1998 to install the second system, which is designed to handle container, packaging, and other municipal waste plastics, at its Fukuyama Works. Construction work at Fukuyama is well under way, and NKK has now decided to install a similar system at Mizue.

   The Mizue system will be capable of recycling approximately 30,000 tons of waste plastics each year, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC), for blowing into the blast furnace as a reducing agent in ironmaking. The integrated system will consist of a collected waste plastics pretreatment system--which will include a primary crusher, magnetic and wind-powered waste sorters, a secondary crusher, a PVC separation and removal system, a granulator, and a storage silo--and a blowing system that will include a receiving hopper and an injection station for blowing processed plastics through tuyeres. Construction of the ¥4-billion system is scheduled to be completed in March 2000.

   The system will incorporate the latest facilities, with a PVC separation and removal system as its core, to handle municipal waste plastics, such as those covered by Japan's Container and Packaging Recycling Law. The system is scheduled to be commissioned in April 2000, when the Law will go into full effect, and together with the facility under construction at Fukuyama, it will give NKK the ability to process municipal waste plastics in both East Japan and West Japan. NKK's waste plastics recycling capacity, including the already operational facility for industrial waste plastics, will then be approximately 100,000 tons a year.

   Recycling of waste plastics for feed into blast furnaces achieves resource and energy efficiency of as much as 80% in the furnaces, and because this process also saves considerable natural resources and energy while reducing CO₂ emissions, it is approved as a material recycling method under the Law.

   NKK recently filed an application with the Container and Packaging Recycling Association of Japan to register both the new Mizue system and the one being built in Fukuyama as product-recycling systems. The Mizue system has been certified as an "eco-town" project by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the City of Kawasaki.

   Looking ahead, NKK plans to expand its waste plastics recycling and blowing capacity in consideration of municipalities' plans for waste collection and related activities in the future.

   NKK has been actively engaged not only in waste plastics recycling operations, but also in the construction of sorting, compression, and bundling equipment on behalf of municipalities. By providing a comprehensive waste recycling service, NKK intends to continue to contribute to the creation of a resource-recycling-oriented society.