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Nissho Iwai Commences Sales of Washing and Shredding Equipment for Used Plastic Bags

Jan. 23, 2003

TOKYO(January 23, 2003)--Nissho Iwai's fully-owned subsidiary, NITEC Corporation, together with Orient Corporation, has developed and commenced sales of disposal equipment for industrial-use plastic bags. This equipment washes and at the same time shreds plastic bags that are used in large quantities for carrying ingredients into food companies and fishery processing companies.

NITEC has been contributing to the establishment of an environmentally-benign flow of goods by recovering plastic material from waste for the production of food trays, toys and other products.

For the food industry, plastic bags that are used for packing raw ingredients such as meat and fish pose problems in the factory that need to be addressed. Blood, meat juice and fat adhering to those bags release a strong odor when left untreated. The used bags also require a large space for storage.

The new equipment is capable of washing and shredding in one process. It not only gets rid of odors, but can make collection and storage much easier by reducing the volume of bags by about a quarter. Disposal of such plastic bags usually costs about 50,000 yen per ton. Therefore, introduction of the equipment will allow a company that produces one ton of plastic bag waste a day to recoup the initial cost in roughly 90 days.

Stainless-steel equipment which treats PET bottles with a similar washing and shredding process is already on the market. But it has not been used for plastic bags because, up until now, it has been technologically difficult to shred thin films like plastic bags. In addition, the new equipment has adopted special rustproof steel, which makes it possible to sell the equipment at about half the price of that made of stainless steel.

Models are available in three different capacities, with the price range of 4.5 million yen to 11 million yen. The sales goal set for the first year is 20 units within Japan, and 100 units for the second year.

<NITEC Corporation>
Foundation:October, 2000
Location:6-7, Nihombashi Kabutocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Capital:260 million yen
Company Representative:President and CEO, Sukeyoshi Watanabe
Number of Employees:85
Annual Sales:31 billion yen (in fiscal 2001)

<Orient Co., Ltd.> 
Foundation:October, 1988
Location:5-38-30 Kameido, Koto-ku, Tokyo
Company Representative:President and CEO, Kokichi Hasegawa

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