26 March 2013
Details
Toyota Tsusho Corporation
(headquarters: Nagoya City; President: Jun Karube)
announces that GLOBIO--
the company's newly introduced plant-derived plastic brand
with which it is promoting
environmentally friendly product development--
will be used for
the PET bottles of Suntory Natural Mineral Water,
water obtained from three natural sources
(Okudaisen, Minami Alps, and Aso).
These products are to be re-released
by Suntory Beverage & Food Limited
(headquarters: Tokyo;
President Nobuhiro Torii; hereafter "Suntory")
starting in May 2013.
GLOBIO consists of
* bio-based mono-ethylene glycol
made by plant-derived bioethanol,
and refers to
all Bio-polyethylene terephthalate (Bio-PET) plastics
produced and sold start-to-finish by Toyota Tsusho.
Since Bio-PET is made from plant-derived materials,
it will not deteriorate carbon dioxide (CO2) emission
into the atmosphere even when burned.
Bio-PET has drawn much attentions
as a resource that is environmentally friendly and
that offers an alternative to petroleum-based PET resin.
Since annual global demand for
petroleum-based PET plastics is currently estimated
at approximately 60 million tons,
* it is predicted that with the rise of awareness regarding
the need for coexistence with nature,
adoption of plant-derived PET plastics will expand to
approximately by more than 5%
(approximately 3 million tons) of total demand by 2015.
In anticipation of these developments,
* Toyota Tsusho and
China Manmade Fibers Corporation--
a major Taiwanese chemical company--
jointly founded a company in November 2010 that
manufactures Bio-monoethylene glycol (Bio-MEG)
made from plant-derived bioethanol.
* The Bio-PET made from the Bio-MEG
manufactured by the company was confirmed as
possessing traditional petroleum-derived PET-levels of quality,
* and in 2011 this Bio-PET began to be used
in the interiors of automobiles from
Toyota Motor Company (TMC).
* Furthermore, in April 2012,
Bio-PET plastics under the GLOBIO brand
began to be produced and sold in collaboration with
Lotte Chemical,
an affiliate of the Lotte Group in Korea,
which enabled Toyota Tsusho to secure
a stable supply system for Bio-PET plastics,
to lead the current usage of the material in
Suntory Natural Mineral Water PET bottles.
ABOUT GLOBIO
GLOBIO refers to all Bio-PET plastics
created through condensation polymerization of
* 30% plant-derived Bio-monoethylene glycol (MEG) and
* 70% petroleum-dased terephthalic acid (TPA) by weight.
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