TaKaRa's Approach to Environmental Issues Surrounding Foods and Beverages

Containers Present Relatively Serious Environmental Issues The environmental problems that companies create differ by industry. In general, manufacturing and materials industries create a large burden at the factory level; environmental responses within the factory are vital. Durable goods like automobiles and appliances are used for a long time, meaning that reduction of environmental impact during use is an important environmental measure. The food and beverage industry, by comparison, produces relatively little environmental burden at the production stage. Use of the product (i.e., consumption of a beverage) produces nearly no burden. Where the food and beverage industry creates its largest environmental burden is following use of the product -- that is, when faced with problems related to the disposal of containers. Tackling environmental issues in the factory is important for our industry, but the problem of packaging waste is a larger one in terms of its impact on society, which makes related recycling a vital activity to the industry. TaKaRa's FY 1999 environmental accounting pegs expenses related to container and packaging recycling at 54% of total environmental expenses, an indicator of how large the issue looms in our industry.

Resolving the Container and Packaging Recycling Problem: The Need for Consumer/Government/Business Linkages, and Corporate and Government Information Disclosure Reductions in environmental burdens emanating from the workplace bring benefits in accordance with the efforts made toward those reductions. But, while the value of businesses' efforts is undeniable in resolving the environmental problems that their products bring to society, so is cooperation with recycling on the part of consumers and creation of appropriate, effective social systems on the part of government. By looking at our FY 1999 Environmental Accounting and comparing the cost required to reduce environmental impact emanating from our workplaces by 1 ECO, with the cost required to reduce environmental impact related to containers and packaging by 1 ECO, we see from the difference in effectiveness of the two the difficulty of solving the environmental problems that occur within society. One factor that will be important in getting consumers, government and business to put their heads together and tackling environmental problems as a society is information disclosure by companies on containers and packaging. It's important now that consumers understand facts about container and packaging recycling when making choices about products. We'd like to introduce the container and packaging problems facing the food and beverage industry and take a look at the recycling issue.