Abstract
Plastics in Japan are all made from imported raw materials. Every year, a total of fourteen million tons of plastics are manufactured with a total of 10 million tons of waste plastics being discharged in Japan. Besides this discharge, 1.5 million tons of waste plastics are exported to foreign countries. The recycle ratio for waste plastics is currently at 73% but under such circumstances, this amount needs to be much greater.
Though there are plentiful forest resources in Japan, 77% of its timber supply is imported while half the remaining debris is abandoned. The iron and steel industry does, in fact, have the infrastructure and technologies to effectively make use of large amounts of these abandoned resources. A waste plastics recycling process using coke ovens by Nippon Steel Corporation is one such technology put into practical use in the year 2000. To date, the process has successfully recycled almost 1.2 million tons of plastics. It is projected that wood biomass can be used instead of large quantities of fossil fuel in the iron and steel industry, as well as waste plastics. However, due to certain problems that still exist regarding the establishment of a proper collection system and costing, this system has not yet been put into practical use. Utilization of waste plastics and wood biomass in the iron and steel industry could be a contribution toward the prevention of global warming and the establishment of a sustainable recycling society.
