People in the News

President, Earth-Green Corporation
Reiko Umezaki

September 2001

Developing an Alternative Newspaper by and for the People

Reiko Umezakii
Earth-Green Corporation
http://www.earth-recycle.com

Balancing Business and Environment Interests

As various recycling laws are being put into force as a means to deal with environmental problems, the Food Product Recycling Law came into effect in May, following the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law and the Home Appliance Recycling Law.

According to the Ministry of Environment, Japan's waste market is expected to reach 39.8 trillion yen by 2020. There is no doubt that the food product recycling business will expand in the future.

Reiko Umezaki, president of Earth-Green Corporation, says, "As the variety of services that require raw garbage treatment equipment and recycling facilities increases, I believe there are plenty of opportunities for business."

Established in 1999, her company has opened an online market for reuse of organic products, called Loss Food Products e-Recycle Corp. (www.earth-recycle.com) to promote reuse of raw garbage. The online service offers a platform to exchange information for companies that dispose waste and those that reuse it. It also provides support up to the stage of actual transaction, putting together views and interests of both sides.

Since there is a wide difference in value systems between disposers of waste and its users, bridging the two sides whose positions are far apart is difficult without a middleman. This is where Ms. Umezaki's company can play a role.

"We conduct research on possibilities of recycling from raw garbage and look for suitable partners. Our work involves overall coordination from garbage separation to recycling and other business," she says.

Although the Food Product Recycling Law is aimed exclusively at food product companies and food service industry, Ms. Umezaki argues that promoting self-initiative among general public is absolutely necessary for successful food product recycling. "Although composts to produce fertilizers through fermentation of raw garbage are gradually gaining popularity in households, a lot of education is still needed so that things will change to make people realize that recycling is a fun, interesting and cost-effective," she says.

Ms. Umezaki plans to start a project called "Supermarket Plan" in December. The project involves creating model towns in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, where raw garbage (mainly vegetables) that consumers will bring to supermarkets will be recycled into fertilizers and pet food. Such a scheme is also expected to be effective in attracting customers to supermarkets, with incentives of providing certain points to the customer card according to the amount of garbage to be brought in for recycling. A "business model" patent application is being filed for this idea.

In a recent on-the-street survey of 200 consumers Ms. Umezaki conducted at two different spots in Machida City, western Tokyo, 70 percent of them gave a favorable response to the "Supermarket Plan," even if the incentive is a mere 50 yen per bag of raw garbage to be brought in for recycling. Another 15 percent also supported the project even though they would not act immediately because they are busy looking after small children now.

"This idea could also play a role in the promotion of 'eco-towns' if the customer card under the project is used as 'eco-money' throughout the city," Ms. Umezaki says. "Even bed-ridden people will be able to have raw garbage converted into 'money' by asking their nursing helpers to put it into the recycling scheme."

What is driving Ms. Umezaki to venture into food product recycling business is her hope to help more refugees. In a U.S. Agricultural Department document she read 2 and a half years ago, she found that reuse of just 5 percent of food products thrown away in the United States in a year can prevent 4 million refugees from starving and cut back disposal costs by 6 billion yen. "I was looking for a work that will help people and thought this is it," she decided. She quit the job of sales division manager at Avon Product, the U.S. cosmetics company.

Ms. Umezaki holds the ambitious dream that one day "Earth Green has a presence all over the world, Earth Green saves the world." Without wasting time, she has obliged herself to donate 1 percent of profits to support refugees. She says that she also plans to propose the same to garbage disposing and recycling companies that have tied up over the Internet once profits start coming in after a year.

She sums up "Food product recycling business was laughed off by many people as something impossible, but even at times when I feel low about this work, I always encourage myself with the thought that I must carry on in order to somehow deliver this 'big present'".

Contact information:
Tel: (03) 5775-2481
E-mail:umezaki@earth-recycle.com