Recycling, the Matsushita way

Osaka, Japan – Global electronics giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., best known for its Panasonic and National brands of appliances, is taking the lead in the Japanese government’s efforts to recycle obsolete home appliances.

Its recycling arm, Matsushita Eco Technology Center Co. Ltd. (METEC), was set up in 2001 – just as the Law for Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances took effect – at the town of Yashiro, northwest of this Japanese southern capital.

While most recycling facilities are profit-driven, the Matsushita Group depends on METEC for research on design techniques and recycling technology, particularly on developing products with less toxic substances and higher recycling rate.

METEC is also the group’s vehicle for its public environmental awareness campaign as the 14,870 square-meter facility has hosted over 38,000 visitors from around the world since opening in 2001.

The plant, which has a product-to-product exhibit hall showing the various stages of recycling – from the input set (old TV sets, washing machines, air conditioners and refrigerators) to their end-products (steel, glass, aluminum, copper, plastics, etc.) – has four separate processing areas for the specified home appliances to be recycled.

In each section, the product components are taken apart, sorted, crushed and processed into new raw materials – at an astoundingly high average rate of over 90 percent, which means that only less than 10 percent of the product (by weight) gets discarded.

In the case of a CRT (cathode ray tube) TV, for instance, the challenge is how to reuse the glass that accounts for 57 percent of the weight of the TV. Since CRT TV sets are now giving way to flat TVs with either LCD (liquid crystal display) or plasma display panels, most of the recycled glass from the CRT sets are handed over to a glass manufacturer or – in the case of Panasonic’s home building center – put into other practical uses such as pulverized carpet-like flooring material.

For washing machines, 50 percent ends up as recycled steel while 40 percent turn back into plastic components which will be reused to make up a new washing machine’s base frame.

In refrigerators, the plastic end-product will also provide for a new refrigerator unit’s bottom board while the cast-in metal in the compressor will be reused for the casting parts of a new compressor.

In its last fiscal year ending March 2005, METEC handled over 2.23 million combined units of the four product categories weighing an aggregate 60,000 tons.

With an increasing load and broader array of recyclable products, METEC has put in place an efficient system to make sure that the products are collected from the consumers, picked up by retailers, and transported to designated recycling points. The distribution/logistics companies then transfer them for processing to any of METEC’s 33 other recycling sites startegically located in various parts of Japan.

METEC even established a spin-off company, Ecology net Co. Ltd. to oversee the management and operation of the whole network. The firm also performs contract work for other manufacturers, smoothly manages the recycling system, adjusting its operations to the volume of used products collected.

But under the law, the burden of recycling rests not only on manufacturers like Matsushita – with over $81 billion in net sales the past fiscal year.

"Recycling is a system that comes together only with the cooperation of society as a whole, including consumers, retailers, transportation companies, manufacturers, recycling facilities, and municipalities," said Yoshiaki Arai, head of Matsushita’s Corporate Environmental Affairs Division.

In this set-up, it is the consumers that pay for the cost of recycling, ranging from 2,700 yens (approximately P1,350) for a TV set to 4,500 yens for a refrigerator. Users pay the recycling fee to the shops that sell these electrical appliances. The retailers deliver the products to the designated sites where the units are brought to the recycling facilities.

Since recycling costs money, with consumers bearing the cost, Arai said it is important for manufacturers to minimize these recycling costs while maximizing the recycling rate.

"Matsushita is continuing to work with the relevant parties in an effort to reduce collection and recycling costs," he said.

Moreover, Matsushita is contributing to the development of recycling by expanding into new businesses that make the most of the know-how and networks gained through its product recycling business in Japan.

In 2003, Matsushita established Environmental Technology Solutions Co. Ltd. whose businesses include making use of the group’s product recycling network to recycle computers and two-wheeled vehicles, selling recycled plastics, and operating an electronic manifest system that allows companies which discard industrial waste to use GPS (global positioning system) and digital imaging to verify that it is transported properly.

"We have to change to a system of ‘make-use-return-utilize.’ Matsushita has started using this new system for protecting the global environment and conserving resources. We can reduce the volume of waste and their impact on the environment by removing materials that can still be used and re-using them when making new products," Arai pointed out.