Sekisui House, Ltd., a leading Japanese home builder, achieved zero waste at its new home construction sites in July 2005. They did this by also serving as an officially designated cross-regional recycler of industrial waste. This designation was granted by the Ministry of the Environment in September 2004, a first for the construction industry. The designation was granted as an exceptional measure under the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Law, under which companies like Sekisui can collect and recycle their end-of-life products on a nationwide basis without applying to individual prefectures for approval.

At each construction site, waste is sorted into 27 categories and carried to the company's recycling center by delivery trucks returning from the site. These resources are further broken down into about 60 categories at the recycling center.

Sekisui House already achieved zero waste at all of its six factories in May 2002. Utilizing their existing recycling routes, the company has since successfully established a new system for construction waste. Some items are entrusted to outside recyclers depending on the type of material; iron, aluminum and concrete are recycled for use as building materials, and resin is recycled into pellets. Sawdust and degraded resin are processed at the company's own facilities and recycled into roof battens and interior materials.

Such efforts by Sekisui House have also helped reduce waste generation at construction sites. The average amount of waste from a construction site was reduced from about 2,900 kilograms in 2000 to about 1,800 kilograms in July 2005. Costs reduced through zero waste reached 39 million yen (about U.S.$350,000) in July 2005 alone. The company expects costs to be reduced by about 250 million yen (about U.S.$2.2 million) in the second half of its fiscal year ending in January 2006.



Posted: 2006/01/21 06:07:38 AM
Japanese version

TAG Manufacturing industry , Material reduction