Katsumi Fujisaki
Recycling Systems Group

We introduced our plastic recycling initiatives at the Eco-Products exhibition held in December 2008, and they caused quite a stir. We had many questions, but the most common was about price. In recent years recycled products have started taking root in day-to-day life, but many people tend to think of eco-products as somewhat expensive. Mitsubishi Electric has worked very hard to keep costs as low as possible in order to promote widespread use, and as a result our recycled plastic costs about the same as new materials, or even a little less. Everyone I talked to about this was pleasantly surprised.

Plastic Recycling Booth at Eco-Products garnered much attention

The next most common question was about how the plastic is actually separated. I explained how we separate the plastic using water and static electricity while illustrating the process with a simple experiment. Water and static electricity are so common and well known that many people were very impressed. Children who visited our booth were especially interested in the experiment. It is often noted that fewer young people are studying science, so I hope that this experiment also helped in some small way to turn some kids on to science.