Toymakers actively developing eco-friendly products
TOKYO —
Japanese toymakers are stepping up development of eco-friendly products in a move to raise environmental awareness among consumers and counter rising material costs. Megahouse Corp, an affiliate of Namco Bandai Holdings Inc, on Monday launched three products, including a board game, called the Eco Othello.
Eco Othello comprises a set of black-white pieces and a game board, both of which are made of a mixture of plastic and the skin of coffee beans, known as silver skin. Megahouse hopes to sell 30,000 units by the end of the year. It is priced at 3,675 yen.
Tomy Co, better known as TakaraTomy, last year launched a doll that is made of plant-derived polylactic acid resin.
TakaraTomy officials said that the company plans to use polylactic acid resin for other toy products as well although it is difficult to totally replace plastic with the eco-friendly material because the resin is not as strong as plastic and, meanwhile, is costlier.
JCN
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Alfie_in_Tokyo
All of these moves taken to potentially address one issue usually end up causing others. Supermarkets in the UK have started using a huge amount of bio-plastics to replace plastic packaging. Two issues here; one, the material gives off increased amounts greenhouse gases as it decomposes in landfill and often needs higher temperatures to degrade. Second, as with bio-ethanol [petrol replacement] vast tracts of land are now under cultivation for these eco-materials that were once used for cultivating food. Tricky being green, huh? :-)
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some14some
Tokyo toymakers don't need to actively produce toys..when people are not actively producing children. for exports? also no need, China is there with improved quality and reasonable prices.
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Kwaabish
It's eco-friendly until the Chinese sub-contractors manufacture it with lead paint....
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unscrejects
The petroleum based plastic is hurting them. Eco my foot.
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