Takashimaya Co., one of Japan's time-honored department stores, expanded its recycling campaign for men's clothes to three stores in the Kansai area, including Osaka and Kyoto, in June 2004. This was the first attempt for any department stores in this area to collect and recycle used menswear from customers. The two-week campaign was a great success. For example, the Osaka store received over 10,000 items of clothing, well exceeding their initial expectations of 5,000.

In the campaign, Takashimaya accepted used menswear at no charge from customers regardless of where they had purchased the clothing. The store then sent what it collected to fiber recyclers for sorting and weighing. Specialty companies then turned the fabric into materials for car interiors (padding), insulation and so on. All collection and transport costs were borne by the store.

The low recycling rate for clothes has become a problem in Japan, and the current rate of only 12 percent is quite low compared with 33 percent in the United States and 26 percent in Germany. In cooperation with Takashimaya, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry implemented a clothes recycling trial in September 2002. The 20-day trial, at Takashimaya's Tokyo store in Tokyo surpassed expectations, bringing in 621 items from 150 customers.

In response to consumers' comments, such as "It's terrible just to dump used clothes as garbage," or "We've been waiting for something like this," Takashimaya became Japan's first department store to offer a menswear recycling service in September 2003. Initially, the company launched the service at Tokyo store and then expanded this service to Kansai during Environment Month, in June 2004.




Posted: 2004/10/08 02:15:55 PM
Japanese version

TAG Government , Material reduction , NGO/Citizen , Non-manufacturing industry , System/Law