Hitachi Astemo, Ltd. is engaged in the development, manufacture, sale, and service of automotive components, transportation-related components, and industrial machinery and systems. In the past, vehicle on-board cameras*1 that had reached the end of their service life were pulverized and automatically sorted for recycling and thermal recovery by the third party. However, in a collaboration among the Sawa Plant of Hitachi Astemo, Ltd., the Iwate Plant of Hitachi Astemo High Cast, Ltd., and Nichiwa Service, Ltd., the products can now be disassembled manually, and components sorted into aluminum, iron, composite metals, and circuit boards within the group. The aluminum is then recycled as a raw material for the base components of vehicle on-board cameras.
Through this initiative, 20 tons of aluminum materials in fiscal 2020 were recycled, thereby decreasing the volume of industrial waste. The effort also won the Chairman’s Awards and Collaboration Awards at the Awards for Resources Recirculation Technologies and Systems organized by the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI).
