About 1.8 million tons of glass bottles are produced annually in Japan.

About 1.8 million tons of glass bottles are produced annually in Japan.
Of these, 60~70% are colorless, transparent or brown bottles that can be easily recycled into bottles.
However, since glass bottle factories are concentrated in the Kanto region, recycling glass bottles collected in remote areas such as Hokkaido and Kyushu is expensive due to high transportation costs.
In addition, green and black bottles such as imported wine bottles and nutritional supplements bottles have not been recycled due to their low production lots, and most of them are disposed of in landfills.
In 1998, Trim Corporation became the first company in Japan to successfully develop and commercialize a method for manufacturing porous light reed material using waste glass bottles.
The company is also attracting attention as an environmental venture from Okinawa.
The company is creating a new industry in the prefecture by considering waste as a resource.
The company was founded in 1973 as a predecessor trading company and began selling natural foods and health equipment.
In 1979, the company changed its name to its current name, Trim Corporation, and expanded into the educational service business, including speed-reading classes.
In 1994, the company established Trim Foods Co., Ltd. and began operating restaurants.
This restaurant business was the beginning of his involvement in the glass bottle recycling business.
The starting point of the business was when we saw a lot of empty bottles from the taverns we operated and wondered if there was anything we could do to dispose of them.
In the meantime, it was decided that the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law would be enforced in 1997, and we began to seriously consider recycling. We were interested in developing the technology, not only for our own processing, but also in anticipation of new business opportunities for local governments and companies that would be faced with the same problem with the enactment of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law.
It should not be overlooked that the amount of waste glass bottles generated in Okinawa Prefecture, a remote island prefecture and a tourism-driven prefecture, may be twice as much as in other areas with similar population size, from the viewpoint of regional revitalization.
The company immediately purchased a patent from a friend and set up an in-house research system. At the same time, it sought to speed up commercialization by taking advantage of government and prefectural support programs and promoting technological tie-ups.
First, in FY1996, the company received a subsidy for creative technology development and jointly developed a cullet making machine that crushes waste glass bottles to about 6 mm in size with a company in Yamaguchi Prefecture.
However, in its cullet form, it was not so different from conventional technology, and its added value as a material was not high.
In 1997, the company succeeded in developing a "continuous glass bottle recycling machine" that produces "Supersol," a porous lightweight material, by pulverizing temporarily crushed cullet to less than 500 microns, adding additives, firing and foaming, and cooling.
President Shinjo said, "In developing the plant, we wanted to work with a local company if possible, but in the end we decided to work with a local company that met our deadlines and was quick to respond to our challenges.
President Shinjo has been involved in Junior Chamber of Commerce activities for 16 years, including serving on the board of the Junior Chamber of Commerce of Japan, and has been active both within and outside of the prefecture.
His network was one of the factors that enabled him to develop the plant and commercialize SUPER SOL in a short period of time.
The key point of the glass bottle recycling continuous machinery equipment is the technology to mix the powdered body of waste glass bottles and foaming agent evenly throughout without any irregularities.
The company has applied for a patent for this technology.
The biggest advantage of this machine is that glass bottles can be fed into the machine in batches without being sorted by shape or color, and the entire process from crushing, powdering, firing, foaming, and cooling can be done in one integrated process.
The resulting Super Sol is a pumice-like lightweight foamed material with features such as good drainage, adjustable specific gravity from 0.3 to 1.2, resistance to heat, oil, and chemicals, and excellent workability due to its fluidity.
Its strength lies not only in the fact that it is a recycled material, but also in the fact that it is a new material with high functionality not found in conventional materials.
Its lightweight and porous nature allows it to be used in a wide range of applications, including as soil fill in soft ground, gardening materials that take advantage of its microorganism-friendly porous nature, and filtering materials for septic tanks.
In 1999, after the successful development of the plant, a "plant for recycling unused resources" was built in Gushigami Village, President Shinjo's hometown, as a model plant and the Supersol production business was launched.
The plant attracted attention from within and outside of the prefecture from the start of operations, and has been visited by more than 2,000 people, including officials of national, prefectural, municipal, and municipal governments, legislators, private companies, and even people from overseas.
In addition to the new recycling technology, the fact that the system is based on regional recycling has attracted many visitors.
The plant has contracts with Naha City and other municipalities in the prefecture to accept about 200 tons per month of waste glass bottles collected by the municipalities without sorting, and produces and sells about 8,000 cubic meters of Supersol per year.
The market price of Supersol is 1,700 yen for a 50-liter bag, and the company has also acquired the Eco Mark.
The company delivers the product to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, local governments, and major general contractors, and also sells it at home improvement stores as "gardening kasushi Super Sol" and other retailers.
In addition to the recycling business, the company is also involved in plant sales, with seven plants already in operation nationwide in Gunma, Yamaguchi, Hyogo, Nagasaki, Tottori, and Nagano.
In November 2000, the company established the Supersol Association to promote the use of Supersol. The plant also received the Minister of International Trade and Industry Award in the 2000 Awards for Achievement in Promoting Recycling, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Machine Industry Chairman's Award in the 31st Medium and Small Business New Machine Development Awards.
In addition, the company, in collaboration with the Glass Bottle Recycling Promotion Council and Toyo System Plant, has developed and marketed SUPER-EMMA, a mobile facility that processes used glass bottles into granulated gallet.
The entire facility is mounted on a 4-ton truck and can be used at the site where waste glass bottles are generated or at storage facilities.
The processing capacity is approximately 500 kg per hour when processed to 5 mm.
The price is approximately 32 million yen for the main granulation equipment and 44 million yen for the body (4-ton).
About 30 units have been installed by municipalities and processors, and there have been inquiries from the United States.
There are several factors contributing to the company's success, but the most important is the high functionality of the products and the wide range of applications.
President Shinjo is proud to say, "This system is a system that can be established on a business basis.
In order for recycling to be viable on a business basis, in addition to securing collection volume and establishing a logistics system, recycled products must have characteristics that enable them to compete with existing products.
In this respect, Supersol is competing on the basis of new materials with functions that did not exist before, without regard to price.
The company also emphasizes patents as a factor in the survival of a venture company.
In addition to having applied for eight patents for recycling-related equipment, the company will jointly apply for the results of joint research with a machinery manufacturing company, but has decided to trim its sales rights.
The company plans to file international applications in the future, with an eye toward international expansion.
In Okinawa Prefecture alone, seven more facilities are needed to recycle all waste glass bottles in the prefecture, including those on remote islands.
President Shinjo said, "I hope that each municipality will introduce the equipment in order to recycle waste within the region in a regionally complete manner.
Especially in Okinawa Prefecture, where there is no pumice material of volcanic origin, many uses can be expected as materials for prefectural products, and this should lead to the creation of new industries," he hopes.