Waste & Recycling

One man's trash is another man's treasure, so the proverb goes. But crab shells and eggshells? The former, it turns out, are an ingredient for moisturizing cream once the shells and claws have been pulverized, while grounded eggshells are used in nutritional supplements.

Nippon Steel and other industrial stalwarts of Japan are strengthening efforts to make use of plastic waste instead of shipping it abroad.

In addition to conventional recycling, companies are tapping waste plastic as an energy source and to extract materials that can be used in the manufacturing process. These moves have been prompted by a decline in plastic waste exports resulting from Chinese regulations and the pandemic-induced downturn.

As mines around the world slow output in response to the coronavirus pandemic, threatening tighter supplies of precious metals, one resource-poor country is ready to step into the void: Japan.

Researchers have demonstrated that seabirds which consumed plastics accumulated the harmful substance in their livers and fat, raising an alarm about the dangers posed by marine plastic pollution.

The farm ministry will launch an online system in fiscal 2020 to link food banks with food donors to support needy people and families while cutting food waste, officials said Saturday.

Japan's largest family restaurant operator will stop using plastic containers for takeout orders and deliveries in December, becoming the first big player here to do so as the world turns away from single-use plastics.

Japanese companies have committed to move away from the practice of burning plastic waste and embrace a cycle of reusing materials as they risk losing environmentally conscious investors to U.S. and European peers making better progress on recycling.

Although marine plastic has become a prominent environmental issue in recent years, plastic is too valuable a resource to ever truly go away, so effectively managing such waste and placing it in a circular economy system would be the most efficient way to solve the issue, experts at a Tokyo seminar said last week.

Japanese companies are tackling food waste at their production lines, using artificial intelligence and other technology to reduce the amount of food that never reaches consumers.

The U.S. and Japan will work together to prevent satellite collisions and remove space junk from Earth's increasingly crowded orbit.