Idemitsu Kosan Co., a major Japanese oil company, and Sumitomo Corp. have jointly developed a system to recycle sales promotion flags set up at gas stations, it was announced on December 26, 2006. This is the first recycling system of its kind in Japan. The system will reduce the eight tons of promotion flag waste generated annually from about 5,200 Idemitsu group gas stations nationwide, helping reduce environmental impact.

Promotion flags are usually discarded as waste after a sales campaign. This is because the flags used at gas stations are anti-flaming processed to prevent fire, and therefore it has been difficult to recycle the flags. With the newly developed system, used flags are collected from gas stations, and sent to a recycling factory, where they are decomposed into polyester fibers and then recycled into new promotion flags to be used for future campaigns.

The production costs for flags made using this recycling system is about the same as for conventional flags, and so gas stations won't have to bear additional costs.

http://www.idemitsu.co.jp/e/index.html
http://www.sumitomocorp.co.jp/english/index.htm

Posted: 2007/04/26 02:28:40 PM
Japanese version

TAG Material reduction , Non-manufacturing industry