Japan: PLANIC to Begin with Plastics Recycling in 2021

The company aims to launch operations in 2021, to annually recycle roughly 40,000 tons of plastics, taken mainly from automobiles and home appliances.

In 2019, Japan-based Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the trading arm of the Toyota Group – in collaboration with Veolia Japan K.K. and Kojima Sangyo Co., Ltd. – have established PLANIC Co., Ltd. It is planned that this firm, which – according to Toyota Tsusho – is to be Japan’s largest recycled plastic processing company, will collect mixed plastic from recycling and other facilities, sort and compound mixed plastic based on material type to recycle them back into plastic raw materials. The company’s mission is to recycle used plastic from automobiles and home appliances. Furthermore, PLANIC will also “carry out the material recycling of product plastic, which includes used palettes and containers, and packaging materials from distribution centers and shopping centers, to return them to their raw material state”. As the collected plastic is a mixture of different types of plastics, one issue would be that they have to be sorted by material. “Galloo Plastics S.A., which possesses a plastic car-to-car recycling technology, licensed the necessary technology (Machinery provider is Ad Rem N.V.). PLANIC’s goal is to process high quality recycled plastic at a low cost by being the first in Japan to utilize an advanced gravity separation technology.”

In Japan, there are two types of plastic recycling: thermal recycling plastics for use as a heat energy source and material recycling for reuse to manufacture plastic products. “Much of the waste plastic in Japan is not used efficiently, including simply being incinerated, dumped into landfills, or exported overseas,” Toyota Tsusho explained. “In Japan, the 3R’s campaign – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – is being carried out to promote the recycling of plastic resources. However, there are critical issues, including the acquisition of necessary sorting techniques and improvement to operational efficiency, that stand in the way of the spread and enhancement of material recycling – i.e. turning plastics back into plastic raw material.”

www.toyota-tsusho.com/english
www.gallooplastics.eu/en
www.adrecyclingmachines.com

(GR32020, Page 14, Photo: SmartRecycling / Pixabay)