EARTH

[21001-14-05] Importance of International Cooperation for Development of Environmentally-friendly Recycling Technologies and Systems: Introduction of the Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling (CR3 consortium)

○Toyohisa FUjita¹, Gjergj Dodbiba¹ (1. The University of Tokyo)

Chairman：Raphael Bissen （Chulalongkorn University）, Carlito Tabelin (Hokkaido University)

Keywords:CR3 consortium, Recycling, Technology, Systtem, International cooperation

Nowadays there are many kinds of harmful wastes, which their export are regulated by a series of environmental laws, enacted in many countries around the world, within the frame of Basel Convention. Also, the depletion of resources, including inorganic and organic materials, is a worldwide problem. In 2015, the United Nation listed 17 main targets known as sustainable development goals (SDGs), including No.12 for the responsible consumption and production. Thus, the construction of a so-called world community would become very important for the establishment of the global relationship in material circulation society and system.
The center for resource recovery and recycling (CR3), established in 2010, is a multi-university, member-driven collaborative research consortium, which aim is to solve the problems related to the reduction, reuse and recycling of resources. As the member Universities are Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Colorado School of Mines (CSM) from USA, as well as KU Leuven from Belgium and The University of Tokyo from Japan. In addition more than 20 leading companies, including the Aluminum Association and General Motors from USA, Umicore and Aurubis from Europe, and JX Nippon Ming & Metals from Japan, have already joined CR3 as corporate members. The 10 topics selected by the corporate members are investigated for a 2 to 3 years period in one of the Universities, and then the results of research are presented and discusses every 6 mouths year. This May, the CR3 semi-annual meeting was held at the University of Tokyo, and about 40 researchers and companies representatives attended the event. In the future, it will be even more important that several other leading Asian companies and Universities that are currently attending the EARTH (East Asian Recycling Technology), would become member of CR3.