Teijin, Sumitomo recycle used polyethylene terephthalate bottles

New Materials Asia, June, 2007

Teijin Fibers Ltd will join forces with Sumitomo Corp, both Japan, to develop an efficient system for recycling discarded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles.

In cooperation with the Japanese subsidiary of Norwegian recycling solutions provider Tomra, Sumitomo has signed a deal with the Adachi Ward government in Tokyo to install 17 so-called "reverse vending machines" in commercial facilities and other locations inside the ward for the purpose of chopping up collected used PET bottles. Sumitomo aims to install 2000 such machines nationwide by 2009.

Teijin Fibers will buy chopped-up PET bottles and reprocess them into PET resin at its factory in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It will sell the resin to soft drink bottle makers. The partners aim to recover 118t (130 tons) of used PET bottles, a volume equivalent to 4.33 million 500 ml PET containers.

For further information, contact: Teijin Fibers Ltd, 2-1-1 Uchisaiwai-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8585, Japan; Internet: www.teijinfiber.com