Furukawa and Toho Zinc Perform Treatment of Medical Waste

Furukawa and Toho Zinc announced on Friday that they would do business of treatment of medical waste. The two firms will start the operation for real by the equipment whose disposal capacity is 35 tonnes per day for 24-hour operation on April 1 under license of the businesses of disposal of industrial waste subject to special control and factory waste by Gunma Prefecture, Eastern Japan, on January 26. The capital investment will be about 1.6 billion yen including land acquisition cost in fiscal 2005. They aim at the sales of about 300 million yen in fiscal 2006. Furukawa and Toho established the recycling center performing treatment of medical waste, whose investment ratios are 65% for Furukawa and 35% for Toho, in Gunma Prefecture. The site has 16,688 square meters. The center prepares for an incinerator and cold storage warehouse for interim storage of medical waste. Furukawa and Toho will specialize in the business of incineration of medical waste in Gunma Prefecture for the time being. They take into consideration doing liquid slag business in the future. Treatment of about 90% of medical waste generating in Gunma was performed outside the prefecture. But when the recycling center’s operation starts, almost every medical waste can be treated inside the prefecture.