Report】 3rd ICETT Environmental Seminar "Promotion of Plastic Resource Recycling through Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration: Promoting Manufacturing Based on Environmentally Conscious Design

Summary

The International Center for Environmental Technology Transfer (ICETT) held the ICETT Environmental Seminar "Promotion of Plastic Resource Recycling through Industry-Government-Academia Collaboration" on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, in order to contribute to the promotion of resource recycling by all entities throughout the plastic life cycle.

In this third seminar, the theme is "Design for Environment," which is the focus of the "Law Concerning the Promotion of Resource Recycling of Plastics," which went into effect in April this year. The seminar also featured "material recycling," "single materialization," and "biomass plastics" as items to be considered in the design guidelines, providing an opportunity to provide information on the key technologies for plastic resource recycling.

Contents

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) introduced the current operation of the "Law Concerning the Promotion of Resource Recycling of Plastics," which came into effect in April 2022. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also shared the latest information on the guidelines and certification system for products using plastics, including the design guidelines already established by industry associations and examples of environmentally friendly design initiatives, as well as the guidelines for certification and the future schedule for certification.

In the technology introduction, Professor Yao of Fukuoka University introduced the processing and molding technology for recycled plastic materials in order to promote material recycling of plastics. This technology is a technology that achieves the same strength with recycled plastic as virgin material by improving the existing molding machine, and it showed us a new idea about material recycling of plastics.

In the corporate case studies, we asked three companies (two from food container and packaging manufacturing companies and one from a retailer) to present how they are developing technologies for environmentally friendly products and how they are implementing resource conservation and resource recycling in society.

First, Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. talked about its research and development of single material for soft packaging materials and environmentally conscious product manufacturing based on LCA. Next, RISPAC Corporation introduced the history of its challenge to introduce and use biomass plastics in its products since 2005 and the movement to promote chemical recycling across industries as the best recycling method for products made of biomass plastics.

Finally, AEON Co., Ltd. introduced their basic sustainability policy and plastic use policy, and their efforts to reduce single-use plastics, as well as their efforts in resource recycling from in-store collection of PET bottles to recycling, commercialization, and sales as private products. He also introduced the company's efforts to reduce the use of single-use plastics by establishing a plastic use policy.

results

　The seminar was distributed online as well as on-site, and was attended by 395 people (412 people including lecturers and related parties) from all over Japan, mainly from Mie, Aichi, and Gifu prefectures. In the questionnaire, some participants answered, "The lectures were given from various perspectives, which helped me to deepen my understanding. The satisfaction rate of the participants was highly evaluated at 951 TP3T.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the lecturers, participants, and related organizations for their support and cooperation.

Speaker and Title

The program outline was as follows

Speaker Name	Affiliation / Position	subject of a lecture
Mr. Yasuhiro Yoshikawa	Assistant Director, Resource Recycling Economy Division, Industrial Science and Technology Policy and Environment Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry	Policy Introduction: Current Status and Prospects of Plastic Resource Recycling - Environmentally Conscious Design Based on the Law for Promotion of Plastic Resource Recycling
Mr. Shigeru Yao	Professor, Department of Chemical Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Fukuoka University	Technology: Advancement of Plastic Molding and Processing Technologies that Contribute to Environmentally Conscious Design - Efforts to Expand the Use of Recycled Plastics
Mr. Sumi Ariura	General Manager, Sustainable Packaging Center, Packaging Solutions Division, Living & Industrial Business Group, Toppan Printing Co.	Company Case Study: Design for Environment in the Development of Soft Plastic Packaging Materials
Ms. Hiroko Yamada	Team Leader, Bio Sales Department, Sales Division, Risepak Co.	Company Case Study: The Challenge to Sustain Food Containers Using Biomass Plastic
Mr. Takahiro Suzuki	General Manager, Environmental and Social Contribution Department, AEON Co.	Corporate Case Study: Aeon's Efforts to Promote Environmentally Conscious Products and Lifestyles

Seminar Scenery

Fukuoka University Mr. Yao	Mr. Ariura, Toppan Printing Co.
Mr. Yamada, Risepak Corporation	Mr. Suzuki, Aeon Co.