Spoons made from KANEKA Biodegradable Polymer Green Planet™ are adopted in FamilyMart

Spoons made from KANEKA Biodegradable Polymer Green Planet™ (referred to below as Green Planet™) by Kaneka Corporation (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President: Minoru Tanaka) have been adopted by FamilyMart Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Kensuke Hosomi). This is the first time that Green Planet™ is used for cutlery. The spoons will mostly be provided together with lunch boxes, rice bowls or soup. From June 22, it will be introduced in some of 40 metropolitan ‘Famima!!^*1’ stores, which is the FamilyMart convenience store brand.

 

FamilyMart formulated the Medium-to long-term environmental goals “FamilyMart Environmental Vision 2050”’ in order to contribute to solving social issues including environmental issues and achieving a sustainable society and one of its themes is promoting initiatives that use environmentally-friendly materials in its containers and packaging. Green Planet™ is a biodegradable polymer developed by Kaneka and is 100% derived from plants.  With its excellent biodegradability in a wide range of environments, Green Planet™ has been certified as biodegradable in seawater by “OK Biodegradable MARINE” ^*2 and is contributing to the reduction of marine pollution. Green Planet™ was selected by FamilyMart for its contribution to reducing environmental burden and it is adopted for the spoons after the introduction of Green Planet™ straws in FamilyMart starting in April this year.

 

Plastic products are convenient and indispensable to our everyday lives. On the other hand, there are growing concerns about the effects on the ecosystem and our health by plastic pollution in the oceans. The Law on the Promotion of Resource Circulation for Plastic was enacted at the Diet in June of this year and it aims to encourage environmental measures for plastic products that are distributed in stores; it is a move of legislation to reduce the environmental burden in Japan.

 

Based on our mission of “Kaneka thinks Wellness First”, Kaneka provides value globally as a solutions provider. Through the deployment of Green Planet™, Kaneka will continue to help solve the problem of environmental pollution.