Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as "Toray") announced today that the company’s ecodear®PET, a partially plant-based polyester fiber, conformed to the new criteria for plant-based synthetic fiber. The criteria are the first of its kind in the world, and certified the Toray product as a Type I environmental label*1 (Eco Mark in Japan) accreditation product, as a synthetic fiber derived from plant-based Recycled Resources.
The Toray product that conformed to the new criteria is the ecodear®PET fabric, which is a fabricated basic textile of Eco Mark Product Category No. 104 Household Textile Products.
The new criteria were established as the certification criterion of plant-based synthetic fibers for the first time on August 1 this year by the Japan Environmental Association (hereinafter referred to as "JEA"). The products conforming to these criteria are allowed to display the Type I environmental label (Eco Mark in Japan) on their labels. The new criteria took shape as a result of Toray’s proposal in response to JEA’s public invitation for criterion proposal. The Toray proposal was adopted, and JEA established it as the criteria after studying them. The plant-based synthetic fiber’s criteria proposed by Toray are currently adopted as the new criteria in the three product categories (No. 103 Clothing, No. 104 Household Textile Products, and No. 105 Textile Products for Industrial Use).
The new criteria include the traceability criterion*2, which stipulate giving priority in using local Recycled Resources (waste sugarcane molasses, etc.) to avoid competition with food. This makes the new criteria that give even more consideration to lowering of environmental burden than the Act on Promoting Green Purchasing (Sustainable Public Procurement Law in Japan).
The ecodear®PET is partially plant-based polyester fiber containing approximately 30% as biobased synthetic polymer content (plant-based portion), which is made by polymerization using plant-based ethylene glycol and petroleum-based terephthalic acid. Toray carried out the first-party conformity assessment activity*3 such as audit of sugar manufacturing factories and plant-based ethylene glycol plants of the companies producing feedstocks based on ISO standards to confirm the traceability of feedstocks that are plant-based Recycled Resources (waste sugarcane molasses), which resulted in the accreditation of the ecodear®PET as an Eco Mark product.
The ecodear®PET has already been adopted for products including MIDORI ANZEN CO., LTD.’s uniform Plantex® series*4. It means that the final goods produced by Toray customers conform not only to the Sustainable Public Procurement Law (Act on Promoting Green Purchasing) but also to the Type I environmental label (Eco Mark) in Japan. The ecodear®PET is elevated into an advanced green innovation product that is safe, secure and highly reliable.
Based on the long-term corporate vision of AP-Growth TORAY 2020, Toray is working on development of products and technologies that offer solutions to global environmental problems and natural resource and energy issues. In addition, the company strives to expand its lineup of low-environmental load products and sales expansion of the ecodear®PET in the Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project under the medium-term management program Project AP-G 2016. Toray will continue contributing to realization of sustainable low-carbon society through development, etc. of advanced Green Innovation Products.
