Nippon Steel Corporation has obtained the EcoLeaf Ecolabel certified by the Sustainable Management Promotion Organization (SuMPO) complying with the ISO 14025 international standard, for three of its products: tinplate, tin-free steel, and laminated steel sheets. These are ultra-thin steel materials used for beverage packaging such as steel cans and other container products. These were the first steel products for packaging to receive the certification in Japan.
Complying also with the ISO 20915 standard published in 2018, Nippon Steel can now provide environmental impacts of their tinplate, not only in the production phase but also in the recycling phase with EcoLeaf. Inclusion of recycling effect is very important for the steel products because almost all the steel products including tinplate used for steel can are recycled. The calculation methodology of environmental impact including recycling is established and internationally standardized as ISO 20915 standard only in steel products.
In recent years, in addition to climate change issues which have been attracting worldwide attention for a long time, marine pollution caused by micro plastics, and waste plastics, caused by insufficient capacity for disposal of plastic waste, illegal exports, and dumping of waste plastics has become increasingly serious, and concerns regarding global environmental problems has been growing even more. The steel can be easily recycled and recycling effect of steel is high because of its high recovery rate. Steel packaging is extremely environmentally friendly in view of pollution, as it will eventually rust and return to the soil even if it is accidentally thrown away in the field or ocean.
Nippon Steel believes that the choice of steel can packaging is an environmentally friendly action. As a way to support this action, the company uses EcoLeaf ecolabel for their tinplate products to contribute to building a sustainable society.
Courtesy of Nippon Steel.