Polymer recycling has been widely accepted in Japanese society by the huge and wrong propaganda conducted by Japanese government and some engineers. However, the materials recycling without the recovery technology from the deterioration and the novel idea of the collection from individual home is in conflict with the knowledge of modern sciences that have been developing since 17th century. The results of the polymer recycling are analyzed mainly on the basis of separation, materials, and chemical engineering. The efficiency of the polymer recycling is worse comparing to the use of new oil products by several times. In particular, the poisonous materials will be accumulated in the recycled polymers because many poisons include in the modern industrial goods and no removal process in the current recycling system exists. The polymer recycling is one of the typical examples in which the free discussion in the society of natural sciences is defeated in the battle with politics and profiteers.

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The rubber materials are used for various appliations such as tires, belts, seals, gaskets, and O-rings.
We call rubbers used for parts that are required to resist to oils and fuel special-purpose rubber. Special-purpose rubber is mainly used for automotive applications.
Recently, the environment and the energy problems, which will become the most important in the future, have been closed up as big problems.
These problems affect automotive rubber parts.
As a result, the demand of HNBR, ACM and FKM increses, and this tendency will expand further in the future.
In this paper, the latest technical improvements are reported on HNBR and ACM.

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The essence of various domestic and foreign environmental regulations concerning organic chemicals used in the rubber compounds is reviewed.

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The industrial manufacturing of rubber to metal parts for automotive applications is characterized by continuously increasing demands on process cost reductions. In parallel the actual regulations for the emission of VOCs require ongoing efforts to minimize the environmental impact.
The electrostatically spraying of new specially designed rubber to metal bonding agents allows cost effectiveness by avoiding overspray resulting in high transfer efficiency. The accuracy and evenness of those primer and cover coatings are much higher, compared to conventional air spraying, which allow narrowing the manufacturing specifications resulting in improved manufacturing capabilities. Along with process details a comparison of typical performance parameters for rubber to metal bonding agent applied by electrostatical application will be therefore in the center of the contribution to give the actual status on this still ongoing development.

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We have developed highly functional bioplastics: polylactic acid (PLA) composites to be used in electronic products. While fully preserving its environment-friendly properties (high biomass-based component ratio and safety), we have improved PLA's practicability, and also added values to it by endowing it with desirable new properties. A heat resistant PLA compound containing the fiber of Kenaf and other safe additives mainly made with biomass has been developed (the biomass content in the resin part: 90%). The PLA composite began to be used in the housings of a cellular phone. Having also successfully achieved a flame-retardant PLA composite with a safe metal hydroxide as a heat absorbance and a phenol type charring agent, we now plan to expand its use for personal computer housings, etc. in near future. Furthermore, we have developed new functional PLA composites to create new applications of bioplastics. A PLA composite that combines shape memory and recyclability has been performed by thermo-reversibly cross-linking PLA. The composite has opened up possibilities for wearable electronic equipments. Also, a highly heat-conductive PLA composite with a cross-linked carbon fiber can solve heat-release issues caused with the latest mobile electronic equipments with thin thickness. The composite has realized heat diffusion higher than that of stainless steel.

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As for fireproof rubbers in Japan, a fireproof putty has been used for 30 years as a fire spreading prevention material in the district crack penetration part of the communication cable and the electric cable.
Recently heat expansion fireproof sponge has been used because of its recyclability and workability. On the other hand, various heat expansion fireproof rubbers have been developed as materials that take the place of asbestos. They are beginning to be used for wide fields like iron frame covered materials, fireproof packings and fire wall joint materials. Most of these rubbers do not contain halogen compounds, so they are environment-friendly materials that do not generate harmful flue gases (hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen chloride, etc) in case of fire.

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