Osada Giken and JECTEC Utilize Cross-linked Polyethylene Scrap

Osaka based civil engineering material maker, Osada Giken and Japan Electric Cable Technology Center (JECTEC) announced on Wednesday they jointly developed high-impact flooring by utilization of cross-linked polyethylene from electric cable scrap. Material recycle is hardly realized for cross-linked polyethylene, 80% of which is thermal recycled and the rest would up in landfills in Japan at present, because the material is very difficult to remelt and reform. JECTEC said Japanese domestic generation of cross-linked polyethylene scrap is recently about 5,000 tonnes per year from power companies and electric cable makers.Osada Giken and JECTEC utilized cross-linked polyethylene chip as aggregate for poured flooring, specially coating cross-linked polyethylene chip with inorganic powder. The coating has a role to improve adhesiveness between aggregate and flooring materials such as cement.The new flooring has 1.5 times higher impact than existent high-impact flooring with advantage of elastic force of cross-linked polyethylene. The new flooring contains 2 kilograms of powder-coated cross-linked polyethylene chip inside 1 meter square and 5 millimeters thick.Osada Giken started to sell the product last month, which targets 300 million yen of annual sales for fiscal 2007 ending March 2008 and 2 billion yen after 3 years.