Toray Co., Ltd. recently announced in Tokyo that it has launched a new commercial fiber brand called &+, and stated that it will support the use of fiber produced from raw material sources such as recycled waste PET bottles. Toray hopes to use the brand to promote PET bottle recycling and achieve a closed-loop economy by providing high value-added fibers derived from PET bottles.
In conjunction with the launch of the brand, Toray has also developed technology to produce high value-added white plastic bottle-derived fibers using traceability technology. To solve the problem of plastic bottles turning yellow due to aging, Toray has cooperated with Kyoei Industrial Co., Ltd. to develop pollutant filtration technology and advanced cleaning technology to remove impurities in raw materials and thereby remove the yellow color. Toray also created a proprietary recycling identification system to detect pre-mixed additives in raw materials to ensure the reliability of raw materials in plastic bottles.
Toray plans to leverage its existing global production base to establish and expand its PET bottle-derived fibers across the fiber, textile and apparel supply chains.
