Japanese Firm Reports Sharp Increase in UBC Recycling Rates for 2011

Showa Denko K.K. (SDK) and its affiliated companies, headquartered in Tokyo, have announced that they have collected for recycling about 6 million used beverage cans (UBCs) in 2011. Showa Denko is a manufacturer and marketer of chemical products servicing a range of industries, including the aluminum industry. Showa Aluminum Can Corp., a consolidated subsidiary of SDK, started aluminum can recycling activities in 1972.

The activities spread across the Showa Denko Group in 2001.The collected aluminum cans are used by Showa Aluminum Can Corp. to produce new aluminum beverage cans. The group adds that it donates money generated through its recycling program to regional welfare organizations, charities and volunteer groups that aid people with special needs.

In addition to the recycling of aluminum cans, Showa Denko reports that it uses scrap plastic as feedstock at its Kawasaki, Japan, plant, gasifying it for use as synthesis gas for ammonia production.

SDK also announced plans to reorganize its industrial waste recycling program by integrating recycle programs independently managed by each plant into a companywide comprehensive program. The goal of the project is to promote further reduction of industrial waste generated by production processes.

As of May 2012, 9 SDK plants have attained zero emission through the new efforts. In total, the company as a whole reports that 2.2 percent of the company’s annual industrial waste is landfilled.

The company adds that as a first step to organize its companywide recycle program, SDK will reprocess organic discharges from its domestic plants through the plastic chemical recycle plant in SDK’s Kawasaki, Japan, plant where they are reused as raw materials to produce ammonia and liquefied carbon dioxide.