Major textile and chemical maker Teijin Ltd. has developed advanced technology for recycling plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate.
The technology involves decomposing used plastic into substances with the same purity as those of the chemical agents that have been newly synthesized from petroleum.
Japan manufactured 440,000 tons of plastic bottles in 2003, 3.5 times the output a decade ago. If the entire quantity used in 2003 was in the form of 500 ml bottles, the output would be equivalent to 16.8 billion bottles.
Japan recycles more than half of its used bottles, remaking them into such items as fabrics and egg packages. The rest are buried.
Teijin hopes its new technology reduces the number of bottles buried.