Demand is currently tight, especially among paper manufacturers.

Demand is currently tight, especially among paper manufacturers, and the challenge for RPF manufacturers is to secure raw materials such as paper and plastics, and many manufacturers are engaged in businesses that do not match their production capacity.
In this environment, Hokuetsu Kankyo (Niigata City) has earned the trust of major paper manufacturers through its discernment and securing of RPF raw materials and its solid business plan.
Amid the demand for new business development in the local intermediate treatment and final disposal industry, which is undergoing a generational shift, the company is trying to establish a new business model on a life-size basis.
The "Point of Raw Materials.
In an industrial park about a five-minute drive east of Niigata Station is the Niigata Mill of Hokuetsu Paper, a paper manufacturer with the top three market shares in printing and information paper.
Currently, Hokuetsu Paper is actively promoting the use of petroleum alternative fuels such as wood chips and RPF at its four mills nationwide, including Niigata, in order to keep CO2 emissions at the same level in a given year.
On a long, narrow site located on the opposite side of a freight train pull-in line from the mills, there is an intermediate treatment plant for industrial waste.
The plant is owned by Hokuetsu Kankyo, which supplies wood chips and RPF to Hokuetsu Paper.
Hokuetsu Kankyo basically accepts construction waste, and we sort out waste that cannot be sold as a single material into RPF raw materials.
It is just one of our intermediate treatment lines," says Takashi Nagai, president of Hokuetsu Kankyo.
The company's RPF is formed by reducing the volume of the raw material, heating it to 140°C, and extruding it to about 1 cm in length.
This produces RPF with a calorific value equivalent to coal. Most of the first tons per month are delivered to Hokuetsu Paper, but "some customers have recently ordered it as an auxiliary fuel for the incineration of medical waste.
We are now beginning to see the advantages unique to RPF, not only as an alternative fuel, but also in terms of longer combustion time," he says, proposing even more ways to effectively use RPF from the information he gathers from customers.
Treatment of a wide variety of construction waste".
Because we handle a wide variety of construction waste, we have a good eye for RPF raw materials and are able to secure the necessary quantities.
Even composite wastes with mixed fibers, such as curtains, sofas, helmets, and safety shoes, can be used as fuel if they are sorted. Dust from wood shredding, for example, can also be converted into recycled material."
The key point is not to collect waste that is promised to be turned into RPF material, but to convert waste that cannot be further processed into RPF.
The company makes a profit from the waste processing fees it receives from Hokuetsu Paper and from the sales of RPF manufactured by generating RPF raw materials from the waste.
The company secures profit from the processing cost by reducing the manufacturing cost of RPF. Even so, Hokuetsu Paper says that the contract is cheaper than paying outsourcing fees to other processing companies.
Moreover, the contract is for 15 years. The contract term is 15 years, which shows how much trust the company has in Hokuetsu Paper.
Success in C-RPF Production.
Mr. Nagai has also begun development of C-RPF, which converts carbonized waste into solid fuel.
C-RPF has a calorific value equivalent to coal, and its quality and features are almost the same as those of RPF.
If commercialized, the C-RPF will be able to treat and convert several million tons of general waste generated annually nationwide into fuel at a lower cost than melting furnaces and other methods.
Mr. Nagai asked SK-Tech (Tsubame City, Niigata Prefecture), a leading manufacturer of carbonizing furnaces, to carbonize construction sludge. The carbonized sludge was turned into powder and fed into the same RPF production line, resulting in a viscosity suitable for molding.
We found that if organic waste such as food scraps were also carbonized, they could be used as the optimal C-RPF raw material with sufficient heat content.
If we can clear the cost of the carbonization equipment, it will be competitive enough.
The production of C-RPF was successfully accomplished by relying on the intuition of a 23-year-old employee in charge and setting the heating temperature about 20 degrees C higher than usual.
Regardless of age, each employee is a professional in his or her own field.
Establishing a Business Model for the Second Generation.
The parent company of Hokuetsu Kankyo was a final disposal facility run by Mr. Nagai's father, Koei.
When Koei became ill, Nagai took over the business.
Now, four years later, the business is in great demand, with banks providing unsecured loans and orders from various sources, but for the first year or two after taking over, "the business was in a state of flux," Mr. Nagai recalls.
By the time I took over the business, the landfills were almost full.
The population of Niigata City had increased, and we could not secure land for new disposal sites. The amount of industrial waste generated in the city was also beginning to increase.
Therefore, he decided to link his business with intermediate treatment in order to prolong the life of the disposal site.
For Mr. Nagai, this was the only way to survive.
Interim treatment was just to reduce the volume of accepted materials," he said.
We were making a huge loss, and I was using my own savings to pay the employees' salaries.
Even so, I had to ask some employees to take a few months off.
During that period, I felt bad for the employees and it was really hard for me," he says.
Mr. Nagai worked hard to find an opportunity to supply fuel to Hokuetsu Paper.
Supplying Hokuetsu Paper and New Challenges.
In order to supply fuel to Hokuetsu Paper, Mr. Nagai worked to improve the raw material procurement and manufacturing process.
Hokuetsu Paper had been a client since the time of his father, Koei, and the assets built by his predecessors were passed on through Mr. Nagai's new business development.
Mr. Nagai made a calm decision and turned down inquiries from other regional paper manufacturers when RPF production was getting off the ground.
He said, "You have to check how much RPF raw material is available in your area.
In order to make a business viable in the face of dwindling raw materials, you must first consider the amount you can produce.
Mr. Nagai is constantly thinking about how his business can contribute to new environmental businesses and environmental improvement.
From this perspective, we, as a player, consider what position we can take to make a profit.
We try to manage our business in a way that is reasonable for our size, without overstretching ourselves," he says.