KURABO Annual Environmental Report

Environmental Burden

Management of Chemical Substances

Chemical substances used in each establishment are accurately recorded and are put under appropriate control in accordance with the relevant laws and properties of each chemical substance. Especially, the establishments handling the specified chemical substances in the PRTR Law have been making efforts to reduce environmental burden caused by chemical substances, by providing the rigid management policy to reduce their use.

* PRTR Law:

Law providing to accurately record the environmental discharge amount of the specified chemical substances and to make a report to the government. In the case of Kurabo, dichloromethane used as a foaming agent of urethane accounts for the largest part of the total discharge amount.

Resource Conservation

Concerning raw material waste generated from plants, various types of resource conservation are practiced through in-process recycling and application development.

■ The quality portion of waste cotton produced in the spinning process is used as absorbent cotton, etc. However, the other portion which contains leaves, seeds and dirt is currently disposed of as industrial waste. Hojo Mill has completed the construction of equipment to remove the trash contained in waste cotton and is now utilizing for quilt cotton and for material of yarn been disposed of as waste.

■ The Tokushima Plant which performs finish-processing of synthetic cotton fabric uses a large quantity of caustic soda. The majority of the caustic soda is recovered from discharged wash water and is condensed for reuse. Also, low concentration caustic soda, which is difficult to be recovered from waste water, is neutralized by the "KBCA system" we developed that utilizes carbon dioxide contained in boiler exhaust gas.

■ At the Neyagawa Plant and the Gunma Plant, molding waste generated in the production process of extrusion-molded products for housing materials was completely reused for molding materials.

■ The milled ends of flexible urethane foam manufactured at the Susono Plant and the Kamogata Plant are crushed, molded, and reused as "Rebonding Foam".