Reduce / Reuse / Recycle

November 8, 2006

 

Incentives Aim to Improve PET Bottle Collection Rate in Tokyo

Keywords: Eco-business / Social Venture Manufacturing industry Non-manufacturing industry Reduce / Reuse / Recycle 

Tokyo's Adachi Ward and Tomra System Japan Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of Tomra Systems ASA, a worldwide supplier of reverse vending machines (RVM), announced on July 5, 2006 that they have signed a contract on a project to promote PET bottle collection using RVMs.

Tomra Japan, jointly with Sumitomo Corp., will install and operate 15 RVMs to collect PET bottles at supermarkets in Adachi ward. Citizens who bring in plastic bottles for recycling will be offered coupons or lottery tickets, and the collected beverage containers will be used by Tomra Japan as a raw material for producing recycled products, including new PET bottles. Adachi Ward will pay for the running cost of the project in proportion to the collected volume.

Tomra Japan and Sumitomo examined the effects of RVM PET bottle collection at several sites in Tokyo. The study showed that collection and transport efficiency were improved when the bottles were separated and crushed by RVMs at the collection sites. It also found that the volume collected at each site increased considerably when consumers bringing in beverage bottles were provided with incentives such as coupons and lottery tickets.

Depending on how the system works in Adachi ward, Tomra Japan and Sumitomo plan to give investment priority to installing 100 RVMs in front of supermarkets in other Tokyo wards such as Nakano and Setagaya. They hope to use the system's effectiveness on a wider scale as an attractive feature in selling the system to other municipalities, which are required to collect beverage bottles by the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law.



Posted: 2006/11/08 11:51:57 AM
Japanese version

 

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