Responding to new things,
keep challenging while changing ourselves

The 2019 fiscal year saw a steady cooling of the global economy as a result of trade conflict between the world’s major industrial nations, along with other factors which cast a cloud over the outlook for the future. While we can foresee a severe market environment continuing for some time, it just so happens to coincide with our own corporate self-review and reappraisal. With the start of our new Mid-Term Business Plan in FY2020, we are actively seeking out the challenge of new things. We are exploring new business and new markets, such as through technological development in support of EV/automated driving and next-generation 5G communications and development of easily recyclable materials. We are also committed to incorporating new elements, including SDGs-focused initiatives, introduction of IoT technology into our equipment and facilities and utilizing AI in our production systems, in order to drive internal, organizational innovation.
The driving force behind this push for new things is found in the employees who make up our global Polyplastics group of companies. I expect every department in the Polyplastics group works together to be the company which keeps challenging new things while changing ourselves.

Contributing to a more recycling-oriented society with engineering plastic

Marine littering caused by waste plastic has attracted a lot of attention as a social problem. To address this problem, the growing consensus in society is that we need to move towards a more recycling-oriented “circular economy”, which emphasizes recyclable and reusable plastics over disposable plastics. Realizing such a circular economy on a large scale will require the development of easily recyclable materials. At Polyplastics, we anticipate that our TOPAS^®COC resin can be a key material used in meeting these sorts of societal needs. For example, in order to recycle PET bottles, you must first remove the label material from the bottle. Labels made from a combination of COC and polyolefin have a different specific gravity from the material which makes up the bottle, enabling the labels to float and, thus, be easily removed; at the same time, because the functionality required of a label can be achieved with a single material (broadly speaking, an olefin-based resin), it is easily recyclable.

Normally, engineering plastic is not used for one-way applications. However, even though the engineering plastic that we manufacture is not a direct cause of the problem, we see this problem as one to be addressed by the plastic industry as a whole. We place great value on being able to provide a solution to the issue of how to get society to treat plastic as a valuable material for long-term use. We are working to address these and other challenges for the sake of establishing a more recycling-oriented society.

Striving to be the most reliable engineering plastic supplier for each and every customer

At Polyplastics, we are driven by the Corporate Philosophy that seeks to “pursue the unlimited potential of engineering plastic, develop talented and responsible people and contribute to the creation of an abundant future society through innovation.” We use engineering plastic as a means of contributing to society. All of the activities that we undertake for the sake of putting our Corporate Philosophy into practice are a manifestation of our CSR in practice. As we strive for new things, we remain completely unchanged in our commitment to working side-by-side with our customers in their manufacturing in order that we can continue to produce products that are indispensable to the creation of abundant future for society. The sense of pride and responsibility that this gives us helps keep our focus on being the No.1 engineering plastic solutions provider, one in whom each and every customer can have complete confidence.