Matsuyama Plant: Rebirth of Teijin Fiber's Uniforms - September 2006

Matsuyama Plant: Rebirth of Teijin Fiber's Uniforms - September 2006

In 2006, Teijin Fibers Limited (headquartered in Osaka) undertook a project to collect and recycle about 50,000 pieces of old uniforms, totaling 15 tons of polyester products, in response to the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ's introduction of new uniforms as a result of a merger. All of these products will be recycled into raw materials for polyester at the company's Matsuyama Plant in Ehime Prefecture. This project was very advanced at the time in that it was based on the concept of "complete recycling," which was based on the premise of resource recycling rather than mere disposal.

This was due to the influence of the "Basic Law for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society," which was being promoted throughout Japan from the early 2000s. This law positioned the improvement of resource efficiency throughout the entire product life cycle as a national challenge, rethinking the conventional mass-production, mass-consumption, mass-disposal type economic model. In addition, with the Kyoto Protocol coming into effect in 2005, companies were being urged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and industry was beginning to emphasize a total environmental response from "production to disposal.

Teijin Fibers has already developed its proprietary "Eco Circle" technology, which recycles polyester products back into polyester raw materials, and this uniform recycling is a typical example of this technology. Moreover, the nature of the corporate uniforms ensured a certain level of quality, and the ability to collect the uniforms in batches created favorable conditions in terms of logistics costs and reprocessing efficiency. Furthermore, this initiative attracted attention as an example of implementation of a recycling society through inter-company collaboration, going beyond the framework of a company's own sustainability strategy.

This type of mass, high-quality textile recycling through corporate collaboration attracted interest not only in Japan but also internationally, and Teijin Fibers later partnered with the U.S. outdoor brand Patagonia to launch a global recycling model for clothing. One of the starting points was the recycling process at the Matsuyama Plant.

In 2006, corporate environmental contributions were increasingly discussed in CSR reports and advertisements, but the example of Teijin Fibers creating tangible environmental value through specific material recycling had an impact on other textile and chemical manufacturers. The Matsuyama plant played a symbolic role in the history of Japan's environmental business as the core center of such recycling-oriented industries.