Building the circulation-based model throughout the product life cycle by realizing and commercializing the recycling system of used disposable diaper

Project members, their roles and key collaborations

In May 2016, Unicharm has joined the "Used Disposable Diaper Recycling Promotional Council" composed of 18 groups and individuals with an initiative of City of Shibushi, Kagoshima, and, on November 1, 2016, we entered into a three-way agreement with City of Shibushi and So Recycle Center on collection and recycling of used disposable diaper (The agreement was then expanded to four-way on April 2, 2018, as Osaki Town joined us.) In order to put the used disposable diaper recycling project into actuality and commercialization, we are continuing to collaborate with City of Shibushi and Osaki Town and going through a series of demonstration trials of recycling system. In 2020, we installed a large full-scale equipment at So Recycle Center by replacing the previous small-scale machine for further strengthening our initiatives and ensuring the recylcing system that is spreadable both inside and outside Japan.

Time line

We are expecting to put this recycling project on a commercial basis sometime in spring 2022.

Technologies and business model

~Roles of each member company and group~

*Unicharm Corporation: Building and commercializing the recycling system of used disposable diaper

*City of Shibushi & Osaki Town: Collecting the used disposable diapers

* So Recycle Center: Installing, operating and managing the recycling equipment

Outcome and goal

Med-term goal (Kyosei Life Vision 2030) = Installing more than 10 disposable diaper recycling equipment by 2030

URL presenting on our initiatives

https://www.unicharm.co.jp/ja/csr-eco/special03.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIteuWYvRjA