The Group believes that realizing the goal of a circular society entails reforming the conventions of mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal in order to form a society with a reduced reliance on natural resources and that places the lowest possible burden on the environment. We are implementing a variety of initiatives to ensure that renewable resources are recycled within the limits of their renewable capacity. We are working to ensure that non-renewable resources are consumed in the most effective way possible, and that their use is curbed and shifted to other renewable resources over the long term.
Our Group is conducting a company-wide study on sustainable circular business for the maximum possible use of resources by utilizing technologies our departments now possess and incorporating them into the business supply chain. Specifically, from plastic recycling and a long-term perspective that treats CO2 as a resource, we are also working on carbon recycling.
We aim for the commercialization of petroleum conversion in FY2025, and plan to convert the produced oil into chemicals at petroleum and chemical facilities, and supply the chemicals as renewable chemicals. Concurrently, we have begun reviewing our business alliances with Ichikawa Kankyo Holdings Co., Ltd. and Maeda Sangyo Co., Ltd. regarding the procurement of used plastics, aiming to recycle 20,000 tons of used plastic per year.
The Bandai Namco Group uses chemical recycling to support the plastic Gundam model kits called Gunpla that it sells. These kits have used polystyrene sourced from our affiliate PS Japan (PSJ) since their launch. Gunpla kits are major hit products with cumulative sales exceeding 700 million units and celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2020.
PSJ is a participant in the Gunpla Recycle Project launched by the Bandai Namco Group in 2021 through chemical recycling. The Project aims to produce the world’s first plastic model products created by chemically recycling by collecting the Gunpla frame parts called runners.
Chemical recycling technologies thermally crack used polystyrene. Applying cutting-edge technologies that revert polystyrene into raw material styrene monomers, PSJ will continue repeatedly conducting pilot tests to establish these technologies going forward.
In accordance with the Act on Promotion of Resource Circulation for Plastics that came into effect on April 1, 2022, Idemitsu hereby discloses the volume of waste plastics discharged from its operations in FY2021 and FY2022.
FY2022 plastic waste volume | 836t |
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FY2021 plastic waste volume | 1,074t |
One of the milestones in the Plastic Resource Recycling Strategy formulated by the government in 2019 is to reduce the volume of single-use plastics to the cumulative suppression of 25% by 2030. We must reduce our plastic waste volume by an average of 3% per year. We are engaged in the following action items for that.
We educate our employees on the Act on Promotion of Resource Circulation for Plastics through the training on improving environmental management abilities every year.
Used solar panels are projected to increase rapidly beginning in the 2030s. Idemitsu Group’s Solar Frontier K.K. is developing technologies to recycle solar panels, aiming to achieve a material recycling rate of 90% or more and to commercialize the technology in FY2024.
The supply-demand balance for raw materials, such as lithium, is anticipated to be tight over the long term in line with the widespread use of the EVs. We want to add value to the all-solid lithium battery value chain in the future by reviewing a recycling scheme for used batteries.
Treating CO2 as a resource, we promote carbon recycling by producing various carbon compounds from CO2 and reusing them for such applications as producing chemicals, fuel, and minerals. We are a member of the Working Group on the Roadmap for Carbon Recycling Technologies organized by the Japanese government. At the same time, we are engaged in R&D on carbonation and electrochemical CO2 reduction technologies.
In tandem with Ube Industries, Ltd., JGC Corporation, JGC Japan Corporation and several universities, our company co-founded “CCSU (Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage with Utilization) Study Group” in 2019. This study group aims to promote an industry-academia collaboration to develop new technologies that convert CO2 emitted from thermal power plants and factories into resources by utilizing industrial waste with high calcium content. With the Japanese government promoting the development of technologies for CO2 recovery and other measures to combat global warming, we are working on technological development aimed at establishing methods for utilizing industrial waste containing high levels of calcium and other substances that react with CO2 to produce carbonates. By doing so, we strive to make CO2 a value-added material.
In July 2020, a project deriving from the study group was adopted by NEDO as a commissioned R&D project spanning five years from FY2020 through FY2024. Focused on the R&D of an accelerated carbonate production process employing calcium contained in industrial waste, including waste concrete, this project will take on the development of technologies for extracting raw material calcium from such waste and reacting it with CO2 contained in exhaust gas from industrial facilities in order to fix the carbon with the aim of commercializing and popularizing this process. Moreover, looking to assess the CO2 reduction effect of the accelerated carbonate production technology, we will test and evaluate it with the aim of improving the efficiency of calcium extraction and carbonate production as we strive to optimize the entire process and establish the technology.
Through our involvement in this commissioned project, we will play our part in industry-academia-government collaboration to develop new carbon fixation technologies that utilize CO2 emitted from power generation and manufacturing facilities. We will also step up our initiatives in fields ranging from raw material procurement to application development to achieve the social implementation of these technologies.
We have succeeded in the direct synthesis of hydrocarbons and alcohols from water and CO2 using a gas diffusion electrode loaded with our original electrocatalysts. Most competing processes for synthesis begin by dissolving CO2 in water to generate a reaction. Our unique process avoids this step by employing a gas diffusion electrode to facilitate a direct reaction with CO2 gas. We are working to develop a process capable of treating greater volumes of CO2 by improving the properties of our electrode catalysts in our technologies for reusing CO2 as resources using these gas diffusion electrodes (electrochemical reduction technology). For example, we are improving reaction performance of electrocatalysts, increasing their cost-effectiveness, making them free of precious metals and strengthening their durability.
Looking ahead, we will promote further research and development on electrochemical CO2 reduction technology using this gas diffusion electrode with the goal of establishing a highly efficient process that is powered by renewable energy and produces e-chemicals, e-fuel, and other useful substances from CO2. In these ways, we will contribute to the realization of carbon neutrality by 2050 through the reuse of CO2.