Sekisui Plastics Co., a leading Japanese manufacturer of plastic foams, announced on June 17, 2004 that it is applying technology that recycles plastics recovered from discarded electric appliances into packaging materials. Sekisui is the first company in the plastics industry to develop and apply this technology.

Sekisui has been actively promoting recycling of polystyrene foam, and has now successfully developed a technology for manufacturing expandable polystyrene (EPS) beads from recyclable polystyrene materials recovered from discarded electric appliances. It will market the new EPS beads as "EPSREM ERX. "

By using this product for packaging electric appliances, a closed cycle system can be established using plastics from the same kind of appliances. EPSREM ERX will initially be produced using the plastic back panels of television sets recovered at recycling facilities, and will be supplied as packaging material for Sharp's Aquos liquid crystal televisions. Due to the properties of the plastic resin used in electric appliances, the newly developed beads are superior in terms of shock absorption to the company's existing expandable beads made from other recycled materials.

Focusing on expected improvements in recycling rates of electric appliances due to revisions of the "Law for Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances" that will come into force in fiscal 2008, various companies have been working to develop applications for recycling and merchandising discarded electric appliances. Sekisui considers EPSREM ERX as one of those applications, and predicts sales of 100 million yen (about U.S. $920,000) in fiscal 2004 and sales of 300 million yen (about U.S. $2.8 million) in fiscal 2006, accounting for 10 percent of the electrical appliance packaging market. The company also plans to apply this recycling technology to manufacturing component parts for various electric appliances.




Posted: 2004/08/24 02:25:38 PM
Japanese version

TAG Eco-product/Business , Manufacturing industry , Material reduction , System/Law , Technology