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JEPLAN, INC. (Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer: Masaki Takao; hereinafter "JEPLAN") is pleased to announce that it has concluded a business partnership with F&A Nonwovens Corporation (Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer: Hiroyuki Kondo; hereinafter "FANS") of the Nikke Group regarding resource recycling of used clothing. The purpose of this alliance is to jointly promote the construction of a recycling system for the collection, sorting, and recycling of clothing.
It is estimated that the new domestic supply of clothing in 2022 will be approximately 798,000 tons, and that approximately 731,000 tons of clothing, or 90% of this total, will be given away after use by households and businesses.※1 BRING™, operated by JEPLAN, works with various apparel brands to collect clothing in stores and to collect and recycle corporate uniforms such as work clothes and office uniforms, BRING™, operated by JEPLAN, works with various apparel brands to collect clothing from stores, as well as corporate uniforms such as work uniforms and office uniforms for recycling and reuse. BRING™ works with various apparel brands to collect and recycle clothing in stores and corporate uniforms, such as work uniforms and office uniforms, for recycling and reuse. Through this resource recycling initiative, BRING is also working to strengthen traceability so that consumers can access information on the raw materials and manufacturing process of clothing throughout the entire process from collection, recycling, manufacturing of recycled materials, sales, and consumption.
FANS, a member of the Nikke Group, uses a material recycling method to cut used textile products into pieces and break them up into fabrics, and then re-cycles the fiber into raw materials for use in automobile parts. Until now, the Ichinoseki Plant (Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture) has relied on manual removal of buttons, fasteners, etc. from used clothing, resulting in high costs and limited processing volume. The new facility is expected to produce 300 tons per month, which is equivalent to 10 times the current production volume of the Ichinoseki plant.
The two companies have been working together since 2023 to recycle corporate uniforms collected by JEPLAN into anti-fabric at FANS' Ichinoseki Plant and circulate them in the market. Through this partnership, FANS will also begin recycling textile products at its Ishioka Plant, which is 10 times the size of the previous plant. This expansion will dramatically increase the processing capacity for recycling of anti-wool fibers, and will contribute to the maintenance and strengthening of the resource recycling system for textile products by recycling not only corporate uniforms but also clothing collected from consumers. recycling technology to not only recycle collected clothing as raw materials for clothing, but also to actively pursue alliances with reliable textile recycling companies such as FANS. Together with its recycling partners, JEPLAN will work to enhance the traceability of the entire recycling process even more than before, and to disclose this information to the public.
The JEPLAN Group will continue to promote collaboration with domestic and overseas partners, and the entire group will work together to drive the circular economy.
※1 Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, "Report of the Study Group on Resource Recycling System in Textile Products.
■ BRING™ (https://bring.org/)
| BRING implements a "circular economy" in society, in which "We circulate our world". In cooperation with consumers, companies, and local governments, we collect unwanted clothing and PET bottles, which are then reused and recycled into raw materials and new products for the market and consumers using a variety of recycling technologies. Our proprietary technologies enable us to create recycled raw materials from unwanted clothing polyester and PET bottles that circulate over and over again. |  |
■ About F&A Nonwovens Inc. (https://www.fanscorp.co.jp/)
As a comprehensive manufacturer of nonwoven fabrics and felts, FANS manufactures products in a wide range of fields, including environmental and energy materials, automotive and construction materials, and general industrial materials. The Ishioka Plant (Ishioka City, Ibaraki Prefecture) is scheduled to begin full-scale operation in March or April 2025 of a plant that will convert used clothing into raw materials by turning it into wool (production volume of wool fiber after operation will be 300 tons per month).
【The original press release is in Japanese】