Companies news
Veolia : A player in Japan's energy transition
As Japan struggles to reduce its plastic consumption, the French company Veolia has inaugurated a PET bottle recycling plant with its partners Mitsui&Co and Seven&i.
JAPAN: WORLD RECORD FOR PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION OF PET BOTTLES
23 billion: the number of PET bottles consumed by the Japanese each year, or 183 per person per year. By comparison, a European consumes 145 bottles a year. However, the country manages to collect 93% of these containers for recycling. A goldmine that Veolia has decided to exploit.
RECYCLING PET BOTTLES: VEOLIA'S PROJECT
" In an increasingly circular economy, it is essential to be able to recycle this waste more effectively," explains Guillaume Dourdin, CEO of Veolia Japan. Veolia has long experience in the recycling of plastics: 175,000 tonnes are recycled each year, 45,000 tonnes in Asia alone. Together with its Japanese partners - Mitsui&Co and Seven&i - Veolia inaugurated a new recycling plant in eastern Japan in mid-March.
DEVELOPING A CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN JAPAN
The new site will be able to create 25,000 tons of PET resin from recycled plastic, the equivalent of 1.5 billion PET plastic bottles. It will also reduce CO2 emissions by 27,500 tonnes per year. In the words of Toru Matsui, one of Mitsui's directors, the plant is a solution to creating a "true circular economy": "For us, this plant is just the beginning. "
