Global approaches for new chemicals management in the perspective of legislation on "environmental product policy" are discussed. REACH, a recently introduced EU chemicals policy, is obviously a typical example and a main topic dealt with in this lecture. This approach is featured by the two distinguished issues; one is "wide scope of registration/notification" and the other is "supply-chain obligation". In particular the latter issue should be strongly cautioned by industries since companies in EU seem to be much more advantageous than those in Japan. This presentation also points out that even Japanese companies doing business only domestically are very much likely to be affected by this law. Best strategies for Japanese industries are proposed as well as relevant movements already observed worldwide.


Statistical Survey on Industrial Wastes Generation and Its Utilization in Pulp and Paper Mills in Japan

Naohumi　Maeda
Environmental Technology, Japan Paper Association

  Japan Paper Association and JAPAN TAPPI investigate industrial waste for the member corporation etc. every year, and have brought the result together. The coverage is 87.7%, based on the paper and paperboard production volume. The total amount of industrial wastes generated in Japanese paper mills corresponds to about 11% of their paper and paperboard production. (BD)
  The recycled waste is 87.8% in B.D to the residue (after incineration is processed, etc).
The wastes finally disposed is 12.2% (in B.D) to the residue (after incineration is processed, etc).


Plans to Carry out the Measures against Climate Change in Japan

Akira Saito
Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc.
Environment, Natural Resources and Energy Division

  Before the first commitment period (2008-2012) of the Kyoto Protocol, the Government is assessing the Kyoto Protocol Target Achievement Plan to revise until next March. It is certain that many Kyoto credits will be necessary for the compliance of Kyoto Targets of Japan. For the procurement of Kyoto credits, the balance between supply and demand should be taken into consideration, and it may not be probable to become oversupply in the Kyoto market for the time being. Moreover, it is necessary for Japan and Japanese companies to make out mid and long-term plans against climate change.


Status and Trend of Environmental Laws and Regulations

Shigenori Imamiya
Environmental Management Department, Oji paper Co., Ltd.

  Although many environmental laws and regulations have been enacted and put in force mainly to tighten the control since the 1990s, this trend could continue for the duration.
  The focus of attention to come in environmental laws and regulations could be placed on (a) energy saving and global warming curbing countermeasures, (b) the chemical substance management and (c) waste and recycling affairs. Especially, it is expected to introduce a drastic reform for "Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law" because there are some situations taking place, which interfere with adequate recycling.
  In this environmental seminar, the environmental laws and regulations are presented, which have been revised for the past several years and have to be watched closely.
  It can be said that for ensuring compliance to environmental laws and regulations, it is necessary to understand the purpose and outline of the laws and regulations, and raise the level of efforts.


The Environmental Policy in China

Meguri Aoyama
Asia Group, Keidanren

  The China's Industrial policy including foreign investment has already changed into environmentally friendly one, because China's environmental problems are mounting.
  China's rapid development has become an environmental disaster. Water pollution and water scarcity are burdening the economy, rising level of air pollution are endangering the health of Chinese people, and much of the country's land is rapidly turning into desert.
  High economic growth necessarily requires the huge consumption of resources, but in China energy use has been especially unclean and inefficient, with serious consequences for the country's air, land and water. Although per capita GDP in China is still 2000 dollars, China is already attracting international attention for its rapid growing contribution to climate change.


Challenges for GHG Reduction in Steel Industry

Toru Ono
Nippon Steel Corporation

  Steel industry of Japan has enthusiastically challenged in energy saving since the oil crisis in 1970's, and reached to the world top level in energy efficiency. Energy saving methods of Japanese steel industry are categorized into I) process innovation, II) process optimization, III) effective use of byproduct gases, IV) waste heat (energy) recovery, and V) utilization of wastes in the iron & steel making processes. Waste plastics and waste tires have started to be used in iron and steel making process to reduce natural resources.
  In addition, R&D projects for further process are actively carried out. In the field of process innovation, after a long R&D stage, the advanced coke oven (SCOPE-21 is now on the horizon. For realization of a social system based on hydrogen, coke oven gas is expected as a potential resource of hydrogen supply for fuel cells, and demonstration programs are carried out. In order to realize global warming protection with simultaneous fossil fuel consumption, technologies for CO2 capturing from blast furnace gas are intentionally investigated as a national R&D project.
  Recent economic growth of developing countries, especially China, is bringing a rapid expansion of steel production and related increase in consumption of raw materials and energy, and huge amount of GHG emission. Therefore, improvements of energy efficiency of steel sector of developing countries are very important not only for future shortage of natural resources but also for global warming protection.
  Among many challenges by steel industry, contributions through supplying steel products with high performances and use of byproducts in the society are the most important for our better life with protecting global warming and resource problem.


Bioethanol: Today and Tomorrow

Hideaki Yukawa
Microbiology Research Group
Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE)

  From the standpoints of preventing global warming and bracing for the expected exhaustion of fossil fuel resources, worldwide attention is currently focused on bioethanol. In the U.S., development of new technologies is a strongly promoted national policy, leading to a drastic increase in the production of bioethanol. However, feedstocks for current ethanol production processes comprise food crops, the supply of which will be increasingly constrained. Therefore, there is a pressing need to utilize "soft-biomass", obtained from non-food biomass as well as inedible parts of food crops, as demand for ethanol increases. The RITE-bioprocess is based on a new concept that fundamentally resolved the technological problems of bioethanol production from soft-biomass.

Keyword: soft-biomass, bioethanol, RITE-bioprocess


The Latest Information on RPF and C-RPF, the Next-generation Technology

Motoyasu Takenaka
RPF Planning and Developing Dept., SEKI-SHOUTEN CO., LTD.

  RPF, "Refuse Paper & Plastic Fuel" is a fuel provided in solid form using non-reclaimable used paper and plastic waste as its staple materials. The use of RPF is increasingly receiving high marks from mainly paper industry as an alternative to fossil fuels, due to its superiorities such as fuel quality, costs and environmentally mild impacts. This report features RPF properties, market demand and related information on the latest activities making conformance of RPF to JIS requirements or ensuing action toward legal revisions, and also introduces a new technology C-RPF, consisted mainly of charcoal and plastic waste. This charcoal, called "Char", is produced through a process of carbonizing kitchen garbage (combustible trash). C-RPF can be substantially substituted for coal as well as RPF and can contribute to reduce green house gas emission by curtailing fossil fuel use. Therefore, C-RPF has high expectations as one of the powerful way for recycling domestic waste which has been being collected and combusted by local governments.


Ash Treatment Technology and Reuse Technology by Ash Melting System

Testuo Akashi
Environmental & Recycling Plant Engineering & Design Dept.,
JFE Environmental Solutions Corporation

  This paper explained ash treatment technology and reuse technology which are developed in the MSW [municipal solid waste] incineration process. Next, new melting process of MSW incinerator ash was introduced, and then new reuse technology of slag produced by MSW-melting process was introduced.
　
Keywords: Ash, Melting Process, Slag, Reuse, Municipal Solid Waste


Waste Paper Collection: Present Business and Problems

Masao Kurihara
Kurihara Shizai Co., Ltd.

  Recently articles on waste paper appear in newspapers. The fact that the price of waste paper increased by 30% in a year attracted an attention in the economic situation in which most goods were suffering in deflation for these three years. As the waste paper price increased, growing numbers of newcomers joined in the waste paper business. Some of them took away illegally waste paper deposited at depots where local governments and municipal unions organized for collection. To counter the illegal take-away, many local governments established penal regulations.
  I will introduce how the present business is going from the standpoints of collection, consumption, price and international market.


A Diagnosis System and Service of Activated Sludge Treatment

Takao Ogawa
Ogawa Environmental Research Institute, Inc.

  Nowadays the computer technology is widely used in the manufacturing processes for controlling the quality of products and production lines. However, the application of computer technology is not well developed in the field of waste water treatment process. For example, most of facilities of Activated Sludge Treatment (AST) are operated based on the operator's experience, although the basic operation procedure is well known.
    The main reasons why the AST is not operated systematically are as followed:
    1) The decomposing ability of BOD component by AS (that is, an activity of AS) in the aeration tank is not evaluated quantitatively in real time.
    2) The instrument / equipment to measure promptly and continuously the BOD value of raw waste water and its decomposing rate is not available.
    I introduce here the method and the computer aided instrument / equipment to easily and promptly measure and monitor the following two indicators of "the activity of AS in the aeration tank" and "the decomposing rate of BOD component in the feed waste water". Moreover, I show that the performance of AST is analyzed quantitatively by using these two indicators.

Keywords: activity of Activated Sludge Treatment, decomposing rate of BOD component, decomposing ability of BOD


Quantitative Analysis of Hydrogen Peroxide by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

Kengo Magara, Tsutomu Ikeda, Tomoko Sugimoto and Shuji Hosoya
Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute

  Hydrogen peroxide is generally determined by an iodometric titration method. This method is determining the oxidation-ability of a sample solution. If any compounds that have oxidation-ability toward iodide are involved in the sample solution, the oxidation-ability of those compounds will be counted as a part of hydrogen peroxide. Accordingly, when the reaction mechanisms of oxygen or ozone bleaching are investigated using model compounds, the drawback become serious. Because some of the compounds formed during the bleaching may have oxidation-ability and be still kept in the reaction mixture after the bleaching. The method is, therefore, required to separate hydrogen peroxide from some compounds having oxidation-ability and to determine the accurate amount of hydrogen peroxide.
  To satisfy these requirements, chromatographic determination of hydrogen peroxide was investigated using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Hydrogen peroxide was reported to be separated by a ligand exchange type column in which a sulfonated polystylene/divinyl benzene cation-exchange resin was packed1).
  In our report, the analytical conditions to determine hydrogen peroxide were investigated using the reported column. The column body made with stainless steal resulted in the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide during the separation. This drawback was improved by the addition of EDTA in the eluent. The detection of hydrogen peroxide was accomplished by an electrochemical detector (ECD) with a platinum electrode (+0.45 V of voltammetric charge toward a reference electrode). When the highly acidic or alkaline samples were injected to the column, the separated acid or base would remove a coating by oxidized substrates on the electrode resulting in the disorder of a baseline, because the current between a working and a counter electrode changes suddenly. Therefore, sufficiently buffered solution was needed as an eluent of HPLC-ECD.

Keywords: hydrogen peroxide, high performance liquid chromatography, EDTA


Changes of Pulp Properties by Recycling
- Effects of Alkaline Soaking -

Takashi Yaezawa
Pulp & Paper Research Lab., Oji Paper CO., Ltd.

  Many works concerning to recycling of paper have suggested that the recycling decreases pulp strengths and optical properties. In these studies, the recycling procedure only consists of repeated treatment such as pulping, drying and re-pulping.
  However, actual deinking process usually has a soaking process which is carried out with alkaline chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide.
  In this paper, we show the significance of the soaking in the deinking process. For hardwood bleached kraft pulp, the soaking with alkaline chemicals affects negative inferences to pulp strengths, however, the soaking with hydrogen peroxide affects positive inferences. On the other hand, the soaking has a little influence on the TMP properties except optical properties.

Keywords: Recycling, Deinking, Alkaline chemicals, Hydrogen peroxide, Alkaline soaking