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Four companies in the Bandai Namco Group (BANDAI SPIRITS, Bandai Namco Amusement, Logipal Express, and Bandai Namco Holdings) announced on May 15 a new development in the ‘Gunpla Recycling Project,’ which collects used Gunpla runners and turns them into new products. The amount of used runners they’ve collected from the start (April 2021) up until this March is about 174 tons. Collected items are recycled back into materials and used to help produce EcoPla branded or assembly-experience model kits. The four companies that have been pushing forward technological innovations in this initiative have now announced the evolution of their recycled products.
The innovation point is color. As shown in the top photo, the previous remanufactured products were only available in a dark single color. This will change to multiple colors. The work procedure is to mix regular plastic raw materials with 10% of the collected frame Material resources and recolor it. Multicolored products made from recycled materials became mass-producible through this process. The four companies have indicated their intention to use the newly developed raw materials in various products in the future.
Furthermore, the four companies of the Bandai Namco Group have obtained SGS Green Mark certification for raw materials blended with recycled materials (at this stage, the raw materials before coloring).The SGS Green Mark is an international organization based in Switzerland that conducts quality inspections and certifications, and also carries out certification to prove products’ safety and environmental considerations. The first time a Japanese company has obtained this certification using recycled materials. From now on, products using this ingredient will have this certification mark on their packaging.
Under the government’s plastic circulation system, producers of plastic products that are discarded immediately after use are being required to reduce their use of virgin plastic materials.As products, shopping bags, Laminated film for wrapping products, and food containers are the main targets. To recycle these into plastic, you must remove the dirt and sort them by the same material. To realize a recycling-oriented society, we must overcome the challenge of this enormous cost and effort. In contrast, plastic model runners are less likely to get dirty because various tasks are carried out after they are detached, and if the collection method is devised, other materials are also less likely to mix in. The four companies conducting joint environmental activities took advantage of this situation to establish a flow for circulation. Efforts toward the circulation of environmentally friendly plastic products are progressing ahead of other industries.
