OREANDA-NEWS. April 12, 2011. Used plastic bottles continue to pile up, day after day. Perhaps people feel it is a bother to dispose of them. Automated collection machines for used beverage bottles are one simple and straightforward solution to this problem. Unlike a simple collection box, the automated collection machine can separate, crush and compress used bottles on the spot, with high recovery efficiency posing a major advantage. Tomra Japan Ltd., a partly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation, is engaged in the recycling of used beverage bottles by using these automated collection machines.

Reducing the issue and costs of separating and collecting used beverage bottles Tomra Japan is a joint company of Tomra Systems ASA (hereinafter, "Tomra") and Sumitomo Corporation. Tomra was founded in 1972 in Norway, an environmentally advanced country, and operates recycling businesses for used beverage containers in more than 50 countries, mainly in Europe, as well the United States. Tomra Japan sells collection machines for used beverage containers called RVMs (reverse vending machines) developed by Tomra. This machine crushes collected used plastic bottles and compresses them to one-eighth of their original size thereby allowing them to be easily transported and recycled. With the introduction of this system, the issue associated with separating collected containers is solved because the reverse vending machines themselves can automatically separate plastic bottles, plastic containers and cans using an internal sensor.

Tomra has delivered more than 65,000 RVMs throughout the world. In Japan, Tomra Japan has delivered a total of about 300 RMVs and these are now in service in the Tokyo metropolitan area (about 170 units) and the Chubu area (about 130 units). Many of them are placed at supermarkets including Summit, and some of them collect more than 5,000 plastic bottles a day. Tomra’s RVMs are very popular, and sometimes you can find queues of people waiting to use them.

In Japan, used plastic bottles are collected by local governments (municipalities) on a regular basis. The costs are covered by taxes, and therefore, a new recycling system is required to reduce the high social cost. Some countries have introduced a deposit system in which a certain amount of money is refunded when used containers are returned. However, this system is operated only for 15% of all beverages. In light of these circumstances, Tomra Japan expects that a collection and recycling system for used beverage containers represents a major business opportunity.