Environmental Impact Generation of Empty Containers Natural Resources used in Making Containers and Packaging, and Containers Thrown Away without Recycling Resolving the container and packing problem is the most important environmental demand made by society on the alcohol industry. Currently, the alcohol industry is moving away from glass bottles and toward PETE bottles for shochu and paper cartons for sake, resulting in fewer returnable bottles used. In FY99, we introduced a new shochu product "Arack" in a returnable 720 ml bottle as part of our efforts to increase returnable bottle usage, but unfortunately, our use still declined by 1% from FY98. (However, the overall rate of returnable bottle collection increased 2%.) On the other hand, with help from increased efforts by related industries, the recycle rate for glass bottles, aluminum cans, steel cans, and PETE bottles increased. Furthermore, the percentage of recycled content in glass increased 5% to 79%, which greatly improved our recycle content percentage for containers and packaging. Data sources Recycled Content in Containers and Packaging Glass bottles: Japan Glass Bottle Association FY99 Data Aluminum cans: In-house estimates based on FY99 data from the Aluminum Can Recycling Association: volume of aluminum cans collected for material recycling (164,216 t) / volume of aluminum cans manufactured domestically (270,743 t) = 60.7%. Steel cans: in-house calculations Paper cartons: in-house calculations PETE bottles: in-house calculations Cardboard: Paper and Pulp Comprehensive Monthly Report FY99 Recycle Rate of TaKaRa Containers and Packaging Returnable bottles: 1.8-l Bottle Recycling Industry Council data for FY98 One-way bottles: FY99 data from Glass Bottle Recycling Promotor Association: 810,000 t (glass collected for material recycling)/1,780,000 t (one-way bottle production volume) = 45.5% Aluminum cans: Aluminum Can Recycling Association FY99 data Steel cans: Japan Steel can Recycling Association FY99 data Paper cartons: in-house calculations PETE bottles: the Council for PET Bottle Recycling FY99 data Cardboard: Paper and Pulp Comprehensive Monthly Report FY99 HOME | TOP |