Realization of a Recycling-Oriented Soceity

Compliance with laws and regulations
Waste is disposed of appropriately in accordance with laws and government ordinances, as well as the regulations of the municipalities where our factories and plants are located.

Promoting the “3 Rs”
・Reuse
We are now reusing some of our used products and parts (including electronic parts) with the approval of our customers.

・Reduce
We are engaging in an initiative in which we have introduced reusable containers with some of our customers and our partner factories that can be used to move goods between each other’s factories, eliminating waste such as cardboard and packaging materials. In addition, the use of equipment to reclaim wash oil and the evaporation and drying of waste water from glass processing are helping to reduce the amount of waste water and waste oil we produce.
In FY 2021, the amount of industrial waste we output increased due to such factors as increased PCB waste at the Sano Plant and etchant at the Nasu Plant. Note that figures from TOKYO KEIKI PRECISION TECHNOLOGY (TPT) are included from this report forward.

・Recycle
We hire contractors to take our scrap metal, waste oil, and waste paper, which are valuable recyclable materials, and accordingly thoroughly separate our waste.
The breakdown for these valuable recyclable materials for FY 2021 was 469 t of scrap metal, 19 t of waste oil, and 54 t of waste paper.

Amount of industrial waste produced



Valuable recyclable materials produced

Recycling used wash oil
The Sano Plant alone accounts for approximately two-thirds of the company’s overall waste output, and roughly half of that is water-soluble cutting fluid, wash oil, and other types of waste oil. To date, we have hired contractors to collect all of this. Having established a goal of reducing waste, however, we installed equipment in the factories to recycle hydrocarbon wash oil, making it possible to separate the oil content from wash oil before disposing of the leftover fluid. This has enabled us to recycle 90% of waste oil and use it like new wash oil, contributing to the effective utilization of resources. In FY 2021, we achieved a reduction in waste oil of 6,686 liters, double that of FY 2020. Going forward, we will continue to recycle waste oil to reduce our waste output.

Amount of waste oil reduced through use of wash oil recycling equipment (FY2021)

 

Initiative to reduce waste from processing defects
Ductile iron is a very strong material used in our high-pressure hydraulic products, and when drilling small-diameter holes or tapping this material, tools can sometimes break. In the past, when this happened, we would discard the entire part being worked on. Because of this, when such a defect occurred with a large part just before being completed, not only was there a loss of material; there was also a significant loss in terms of the energy put into processing, and it could even lead to delayed product delivery. Because this issue could not be completely prevented solely by improving the tools or processing conditions, we installed an electrical discharge machine at the Sano Plant that enables broken tools to be removed without damaging the part being worked on.
In the one-year period after installing the machine, approximately 50 parts were able to be saved without discarding them, including large parts weighing over 30 kilograms. This also enabled savings in power consumption by processing equipment, which takes over an hour per part. Going forward, we will continue to promote initiatives aimed at the effective use of limited resources.

Going paperless with design issuing
In the past, the design section in the Engineering Department was in charge of issuing design documents used by the Production Department, printing blueprints and parts lists before sending them. However, the fact that the printing work took time as well as that a large amount of paper resources were consumed for each issue were problems. In order to improve on these problems, the Engineering & Products Service Office, which supervises the entire Group, developed a design issue management tool.
The genres of the products that the Group produces differ greatly depending on business segment and production site, and their production flows also differ. Accordingly, it was thought that development of such a tool would be extremely difficult. It was determined, however, that swift improvements were necessary from a sustainability perspective and, with the help and understanding of a great number of departments, development moved forward in a short span of time. The Production Departments provided full cooperation in the development of the tool. After analyzing the flow of production, every effort was made to avoid significantly impacting existing work operations in the perfection of a generic, all-purpose routine for issuing electronic designs for products at the Yaita Plant, serving as a first stage for the development of the tool.
The result was the elimination of an equivalent of 160,000 A4-sized printed pages of paper, as well as an approximate 1,000-hour reduction in the work involved in issuing and receiving blueprints over a one-year span. There was also an incidental benefit in terms of a reduction in time spent dealing with inquiries regarding the progress of designs being issued. Going forward, these results will be extended to the Nasu and Sano Plants as we engage in continuous improvements in work operations and contribute to the conservation of resources.

A screenshot of the design issue management tool input screen

Policies
Some chemical substances have harmful effects on the environment and human body. As such, it is companies’ social responsibility to manage them properly and to take the environment and occupational safety into account. We are working to cut our emissions of chemicals by setting voluntary reduction targets.

Switching to alternatives to hazardous chemicals
Each of our factories is actively switching to alternative materials to hazardous chemicals.

• Cleaning agents for hydraulic products
  Switched from dichloromethane to hydrocarbon-based
• Thinners
  Switched to alternatives free from toluene and xylene
• Cutting fluid
  Switched to alternatives free from chlorine

Green partner initiative
The “Green Partner System” is an initiative to eliminate hazardous substances from production processes throughout the supply chain in order to encourage environmentally friendly manufacturing. TOKYO KEIKI is putting this system into practice alongside our suppliers, subcontractors, and other partners.
Under this initiative, partners who meet our management standards and have the ability to conduct independent quality management to prevent hazardous substances being used in or contaminating their production lines are certified as Green Partners. This eliminates the need to submit a non-inclusion certificate for each product or part and to conduct some of the tests on the chemical substances they contain. We also provide various services to Green Partners, such as support for the testing and analysis of chemical substances contained in parts and materials, provision of environment-related information, and support for environment-related education.

Reducing hazardous waste
We are working to reduce the amount of hazardous substances that we dispose of by reviewing purchase lots, reducing excess inventory by subdividing orders, and encouraging the purchase of products that do not use hazardous substances.
In the past, we used dichloromethane to remove oil from the surface of hydraulic products produced at the Sano Plant prior to the coating process. Dichloromethane, however, is a highly toxic chemical substance. We made the decision to switch to a less toxic hydrocarbon-based cleaning agent and designed and built our own dedicated cleaning equipment. We began using this equipment in January 2021 and ultimately used 495 kilograms of dichloromethane in FY 2021. This was a drastic 95% reduction in comparison with FY 2020.

PRTR emissions: Sano Plant　*Emissions only (excluding transfers)

FY	Dichloromethane (kg)	Toluene (kg)
2017	15,400	1,140
2018	18,400	1,330
2019	14,000	1,100
2020	11,000	990
2021	495	989

PRTR emissions: Nasu Plant　*Emissions only (excluding transfers)

FY	Xylene (kg)	1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene (kg)
2017	43	11
2018	66	17
2019	51	12
2020	50	12
2021	49	13

Headquarters grounds certified as an Ota Ward Protected Forest
Technoport Kamata, the location of TOKYO KEIKI’s Headquarters, is an office building block that was built as a redevelopment of the site of our former headquarters and plant. Construction was completed in September 1990. Two-thirds of the vast grounds were turned into a tranquil green space environment.
Now, more than 30 years after the completion of construction, the trees planted at that time have grown, turning the grounds into a conspicuous green oasis in Kamata, a district with little verdure.
The area around our Headquarters, in particular, is surrounded by a variety of trees, and Ota Ward has designated the more than 2,000-m² green space around the Headquarters building as a “Protected Forest.”

               Ota Ward Protected Forest

Measures to prevent the death of cherry trees due to an invasive insect
Several large cherry trees that are nearly 50 years old grow on the grounds of the Sano Plant. Each year, they bloom stunningly, delighting the eyes of many people who live in the area. In recent years, however, cherry trees withering and dying due to Aromia bungii or the red-necked longhorn, an invasive insect that has entered the area from neighboring prefectures, has become a problem. We received contact that damage due to this insect had also occurred at the Sano Industrial Park. We conducted an inspection of the cherry trees on the grounds and discovered signs of damage caused by the insect’s larvae feeding. Accordingly, we injected the trees with larvicide and set up nets to capture adult insects. Going forward, we will continue to carefully maintain these trees as a symbol of the Sano Plant.

Installation of netting