TOKYO — Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd., Teijin Fibers Ltd. and Chikuma & Co., Ltd. have announced a joint program to reduce environmental waste by recycling employee uniforms at all OKI Group business locations.
OKI collects used uniforms and restores the fabric. Disposed uniforms are reincarnated into polyester fabric through a complete recycling system called “Eco Circle,” based on Teijin Fibers’ “fiber-to-fiber” technology. Chikuma will then sew the fabric to a fully recycled uniform and provide it back to the OKI Group, which will enable OKI to recycle uniforms over and over again.
“We are pleased to contribute to reducing the environmental burden through recycling our uniforms. This is part of OKI’s group-wide commitment to 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) activities which include activities to achieve emission of zero waste to minimize landfills, and activities to use the water effectively,” said Masataka Sase, Senior Vice President of Oki Electric Industry and General Manager of OKI's Global Environment Division.
OKI provides uniforms to its employees at its plants and those in administrative positions. By March 2009, the OKI Group plans to recycle approximately 2000 uniforms, equivalent to a gross weight of 1.2 tons. Recycling uniforms will generate less CO2 than disposing of them and making new uniforms from petroleum products. Therefore, OKI will be reducing approximately 3.7 tons of CO2 through uniform recycling.
The completely recycled uniforms will have “eco-marks” sewed onto them to qualify them as meeting the criteria for used clothes by the Japan Environment Association. OKI Group will appropriately recycle used uniforms as resources by adopting widely the uniform recycling program and leveraging the waste treatment scheme operated by Chikuma.
