MUFG partners with Mitsubishi Chemical and Refinverse for circular office plastic recycling

This initiative aims to advance domestic recycling of plastic raw materials and will reduce environmental impact and resource procurement risk while creating new business opportunities

MUFG Bank, Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC), and Refinverse Group, Inc. announced a signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) to launch a circular economy proof-of-concept for recycling office plastics.

The partnership aims to establish a sustainable system for collecting and repurposing common office materials, such as clear file folders, packaging, and cushioning materials, which were previously disposed of via thermal recycling.

This scheme involves collecting and recycling some of the plastics used at the MUFG Bank Nihonbashi Annex into employee ID card holders for bank staff. This initiative aims to advance domestic recycling of plastic raw materials and will reduce environmental impact and resource procurement risk while creating new business opportunities.

Until now, most plastics used in offices other than PET bottles were disposed of through thermal recycling.

In this proof of concept, used plastics from offices will be sorted, collected, processed as raw materials to meet quality standards, and then recycled under strict quality control. The goal is to establish a circular scheme where the plastic is first converted into oil with chemical recycling at MCC’s Ibaraki Plant, regenerated into polypropylene (PP) resin by its group company Japan Polypropylene Corporation (Japan Polypropylene), and finally used as material for employee ID card holders for staff at the MUFG Bank Nihonbashi Annex. 

Refinverse will handle the collection and primary processing of used plastics. Furthermore, according to calculations by Earth hacks & Co., a reduction in CO2 emissions of over 30% can be expected from this initiative. Going forward, all four companies will advance these calculations and visualize them using Earth hacks’ Decarbo Score for use in communication with stakeholders.

Since its completion in July 2025, MCC’s chemical recycling facility has been evaluating accepting various used plastics as recycling feedstock.

This proof of concept will assess the environmental impact of this initiative using methods such as life cycle assessment, examine behavioral changes to improve sorting and collection rates, and study efficiency improvements in each process step, including collection/transportation and primary processing.

Furthermore, Refinverse will confirm that the plastics routinely generated by the approx. 1,400 employees working in the MUFG Bank Nihonbashi Annex, following sorting, can be accepted as feedstock for chemical recycling. This demonstration experiment is expected to show that recycled plastics from office buildings can be used to create products of equivalent quality to those made with new plastic.

Moving forward, the three companies will leverage insights gained from this proof of concept to explore resource circulation of plastics from offices at the regional level through collaboration with more businesses and municipalities.