FEATURED ARTICLES Work on Resource Recycling in Hitachi Appliance Recycling for a Resource-eff icient Society Creating a Hitachi Groupwide Plastic Recycling Scheme Plastics have been used for many years in household appliances and many other Hitachi Group products for benefits such as their low weight and lack of rust and corrosion. But these benefits turn into drawbacks when it comes to disposal, and waste plastic is linked to worldwide environmental problems such as soil and ocean pollution, and global warming caused by CO2 emitted when burned. To help solve environmental problems while drawing on the benefits of plastic, Hitachi is working on creating a scheme for recycling the plastics used throughout the group, centered on home appliances. This article provides a detailed look at the scheme, presenting the issues to be tackled in the years ahead. Tatsuya Matsumoto Tomoki Gohonjo Kazuya Goto Takeshi Nemoto market prices are aff ected by macro factors (politics, economics, and speculation) in addition to supply 1. Introduction and demand. As shown in Figure 2, world economic growth and rising demand for crude oil have given Japan’s Act on Recycling of Specifi ed Kinds of Home crude oil prices a long-term upward trend, making Appliances (‘Home Appliance Recycling Law’) went stable procurement of plastic materials more diffi cult into eff ect on April 1, 2001. It is designed to promote every year. effi cient use of resources and reduce waste through the recycling of plastics and other useful parts and mate- Figure 1 — Amount of Plastics Used in Typical Home Appliances rials from four types of home appliances disposed of Plastic materials make up about 40% of a typical home appliance overall. by households and offi ces. Th e four product types are air conditioners, televisions [cathode-ray tube (CRT), Refrigerator (520 liters) Upright washers (12 kg) Other 3% Other 10% liquid crystal display (LCD), and plasma types], Glass 3% refrigerators and freezers, and washers and driers. Glass 25% Plastics 38% Plastics Th e use of plastics in home appliances is wide- 41% Metals spread and extensive. A typical refrigerator or washer Metals (steel, copper, (steel, copper, aluminum) aluminum) 46% construction is about 40% plastics for example, 34% underscoring the importance of these materials (see Figure 1). Plastics are made from crude oil, so their Hitachi Review Vol. 68, No. 5 684–685 117 Figure 2 — World Supply and Demand for Crude Oil, and Crude Oil Prices Shown here are the world supply and demand for crude oil from 2000 to 2020 (left ), and WTI crude oil prices from 2000 to 2021 (right). World supply and demand for crude oil WTI crude oil prices (Megabarrels/ day) (last 2 years are forecasts) (USD/bl) (last 3 years are forecasts) 105.0 120.0 100.0 100.0 95.0 80.0 90.0 60.0 40.0 85.0 20.0 80.0 0.0 75.0 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 (Year) World supply World demand (Year) WTI: West Texas Intermediate Source: Adapted by Hitachi from the International Energy Agency Report (June 2019) Hitachi is responding to this issue by promoting refrigerators/freezers are also collected and destroyed. plastic recycling in Japan and abroad. Meanwhile, Home appliance manufacturers are divided into due to the diffi culty of maintaining recycling qual- Groups A and B as shown in Table 1(1). Th ey collect ity overseas and the lack of recycling schemes, the and recycle four types of used appliances throughout company has begun with Japan-led eff orts to promote Japan. Hitachi belongs to Group B, and owns stakes the use of recycled materials. Hitachi has created a set in three appliance recyclers—Kantou Eco Recycle of long-term environmental targets entitled Hitachi Environmental Innovation 2050 that presents a vision Table 1 — List of Group A and Group B Manufacturers for a ‘resource effi cient society.’ Th e targets include Shown here are the Group A and Group B manufacturers as of July 1, a 50% improvement in resource usage effi ciency by 2018. 2050 (relative to FY2010). To help achieve that target, Group A Group B the company is using home appliance recycling proj- LG Electronics Japan Inc. Aqua, Co., Ltd. Electrolux Professional Japan Sharp Corporation ects to recycle its own plastic resources. Th is article Limited describes these activities. Osaka Gas Co., Ltd. Sony Corporation Orion Electric Co.,Ltd. Sony Corporation (Aiwa Co., Ltd.) Cleanup Corporation Chofu Seisakusho Co., Ltd. 2. Used Home Appliance Corona Corporation Toyotomi Co., Ltd. Recycling Processes Samsung Electronics Japan Co., Ltd. Noritz Corporation JVCKenwood Corporation Haier Japan Sales Co., Ltd. Daikin Industries, Ltd Hitachi Appliances, Inc.* Th e Home Appliance Recycling Law requires home deviceSTYLE Marketing Corporation Hitachi Consumer Marketing, Inc.* appliance manufacturers to recycle collected used Hitachi-Johnson Controls Air Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. appliances. Consumers are also asked to do their part Conditioning, Inc. Toshiba Visual Solutions Fujitsu General Limited by paying an appliance retailer or mass merchandiser Corporation Toshiba Lifestyle Products & Funai Electric Co., Ltd. a collection fee and recycling fee when disposing of Services Corporation home appliances subject to the act. Th ese fees are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Dometic Group AB Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration used mainly to cover the cost paid by home appliance Corporation manufacturers when outsourcing recycling work to Purpose Co., Ltd. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Mitsubishi Electric Engineering Panasonic Corporation recyclers. Collected appliances are brought together Company Limited Panasonic Corporation (SANYO at centers run by recyclers in each area of the coun- Ryohin Keikaku Co.,Ltd. Electric Co., Ltd.) try. Th ey are recycled by manual disassembly along Mr Max Holdings Ltd. Rinnai Corporation with processes such as crushing and sorting. At the Yanmar Energy System Co., Ltd. same time, refrigerant and insulator fl uorocarbons Source: Excerpted from ‘Measures for Supporting Appliance Recycling’, Association for Electric Home Appliances in Japanese. contained in appliances such as air conditioners and * Now Hitachi Global Life Solutions, Inc. 118 FEATURED ARTICLES Figure 3 — Flow of Home Appliance Recycling in Hitachi The Hitachi Group includes three appliance recyclers, a recyclables producer, and an appliance manufacturer that work together on resource recycling. Home appliance recyclers Recyclables Home appliance producer manufacturer Hitachi Appliances Kantou Eco Recycle, Hokkaido Eco Recycle Systems, Tokyo Eco Recycle Techno Service Hitachi Global Life Solutions Intake Disassembly Crushing/sorting Additives Manual Individual Recycling disassembly crushing PP, GPPS Air Coloring conditioners Extracting parts Washers, manually clothes driers Mixed plastics Mixed crushing sorting Mixed Televisions plastics (CRT, LCD and Sorting plasma types) Sorting Refrigerators, freezers Sorting by material PP, GPPS, ABS CRT: cathode-ray tube LCD: liquid crystal display PP: polypropylene GPPS: general-purpose polystyrene ABS: acrylonitrile butadiene styrene Figure 4 — Major Collectable Plastic Materials for Recycling Parts for recycling Collectable materials (color) Collection rate The major plastic materials that can be collected Refrigerator crisper drawers, washer drums PP (white) About 8% for recycling are listed here along with their collec- Interior refrigerator shelves GPPS (clear) About 12% tion rates. Other (mixed plastics) Mixed plastics (various) About 80% PP GPPS Mixed plastics Co. Ltd., Hokkaido Eco Recycle Systems Co. Ltd., Since PP and general-purpose polystyrene (GPPS) and Tokyo Eco Recycle Co. Ltd. Th e fi rst of these enable easy identifi cation of parts to recycle, their col- three operates within the Tochigi Works of Hitachi lectable materials and coloring make them easy to Global Life Solutions, Inc., where it was established recycle and give them high added value. Th ese materi- (see Figure 3). als are therefore collected individually after being crushed in small dedicated crushers. Other mixed plas- 2. 1 tics fi rst undergo a mixed crushing process along with Crushed Plastic Collection Process disassembled parts that can’t be collected individually. Th ree substances account for 70 to 80% of the plastic Materials are then collected after being sorted accord- materials used in home appliances—polypropylene ing to individual material properties such as magnetism (PP), polystyrene (PS), and acrylonitrile butadiene (ferrous metal sorting), specifi c gravity, eddy current styrene (ABS). Figure 4 shows the plastic items that (nonferrous metal sorting), and color. However, today’s nearly every recycler in Japan collects from used home home appliances contain a growing amount of PP and appliances. Collected items and collection methods GPPS parts that are diffi cult to recycle, such as plastic vary from recycler to recycler, depending on factors parts with insulating urethane or glass wool bonded to such as the available workforce, crushers, and space. them, or parts containing a fi xed quantity of glass fi bers Hitachi Review Vol. 68, No. 5 686–687 119 for reinforcement. Another problem is that some Figure 5 — Waste Plastic Exports from Japan * This graph shows Japan’s waste plastic export quantities from 2016 crushers have diffi culty generating plastic pellets from to 2018. Stricter importing regulations overseas significantly reduced crushed parts if the grain size of the collected parts is exports in 2018. 2 not within 10 to 50 mm . (Thousands of (%) metric tons) 60.0 1800 2. 2 52.6 52.3 1600 Handling Crushed Mixed Plastics 50.0 1527 1400 Mixed plastics are mixtures of various types of plastic 1432 parts collected from mixed crushing processes. Th ey 40.0 1200 32.3 also contain contaminants such as copper wires and 1000 30.0 1008 urethane grains that could not be removed during 21.9 800 19.2 18.6 sorting. Some mixed plastics were previously exported 20.0 600 17.6 to China where the sorting cost was low. However, 12.2 400 10.0 10.1 stricter Chinese environmental regulations have pro- 5.4 200 hibited imports of used plastic parts since January 4.6 0.0 0 2018.