From Logistics Warehouses to Factories and Offices: On the Front Lines of Recycling with the TOMY Group
From Logistics Warehouses to Factories and Offices: On the Front Lines of Recycling with the TOMY Group
At each step of producing toys and delivering them to customers, inevitably a wide range of waste is generated. The TOMY Group is conducting a wide range of initiatives to eliminate waste through appropriate processing and recycling, doing whatever we can to minimize environmental impact. In this special feature, we introduce representative examples of recycling activities at our logistics warehouses, factories and offices, based on field research and interviews.
100% of cardboard is recycled! Tell us about the recycling efforts Ichikawa Logistics Center in Chiba Prefecture has conducted over the past 15 years.
Every day, logistics workplaces generate vast amounts of cardboard, plastic and other materials used in logistics. The TOMY MARKETING Ichikawa Logistics Center, which supports the TOMY Group’s logistics operations in Japan, has been recycling 100% of these logistical materials for the past 15 years, achieving efficient operations while caring for the environment. For this special feature, we spoke with Atsushi Ino and Yasuhide Watanabe, two TOMY MARKETING employees responsible for logistics management at Ichikawa Logistics Center. We talked about the recycling processes themselves, how and why they were started, the results accomplished and the way forward.
Atsushi Ino
Logistics and Administration Division TOMY MARKETING
After working at a toy wholesaler and a TV mail-order sales company, Mr. Ino joined TOMY SALES (at that time) in 2007. As an expert in logistics, he was responsible for the design of the logistics platform used at Ichikawa Logistics Center. He is currently in charge of overall management of logistics and administration in the Logistics and Administration Division of TOMY MARKETING.
Yasuhide Watanabe
Logistics Admin Team
Logistics Group
Logistics and Administration Division
TOMY MARKETING
Mr. Watanabe joined TOMY MARKETING in 1989. After working as a sales representative in the EV business, he moved to the Logistics Section of the Sales Management Department. Today he is taken with management duties in the Logistics Admin Team, Logistics Group, Logistics and Administration Division of TOMY MARKETING.
From Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture to every part of Japan: a base on the front lines of toy logistics
Let’s start with Ichikawa Logistics Center. What kind of facility is this?
Ino
Ichikawa Logistics Center is our TOMY Group’s mainstay facility supporting logistics operations in Japan. The Center ships toys to retailers and wholesalers throughout the country. Beginning last year, the Center also handles the warehouse for TOMY Group ’s direct-from-manufacturer e-commerce website. Products sold on TOMY Mall are also shipped from here. Many of the products we handle are manufactured overseas, so every day we sort and inspect products shipped to us in containers. Our main job is shipping products to fill customer orders. The Center, which has over 56,000 sqm of floor space, makes extensive use of labor-saving devices. For example, shipping and work instructions are computerized using the latest system, and products are sorted using a large machine called a piece sorter.
How many people work at Ichikawa Logistics Center?
Watanabe
Normally we have about 120 people working here, but the number swells to 250 or so during the year-end busy season. With that staffing level we handle up to 200,000 pieces* per day. If we didn’t have the piece sorter, we’d need several times as many people. *1 piece = 1 sold product
Toys are shipped from here to every part of Japan. Why did you choose Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture as the location for this facility?
Ino
The main reason is that it’s close to Tokyo Bay. Containers loaded with products arrive by sea, so locating close to the port reduces the cost of moving goods from the port to the center. Also, this area is home to a cluster of logistics centers of major recipients of our deliveries, including major retailers and e-commerce operators. Ichikawa is an efficient location for both shipping and receiving.
Ichikawa Logistics Center is situated in a multi-level warehousing complex called ProLogis Park Ichikawa 2, which opened in 2010. Different companies can lease space on different floors; the TOMY Group is located on floors 2 through 5.When products are ordered, they are sent along on white sorter trays. The goods are sorted into the required quantities for each sales outlet before being loaded into containers.
Fully retooled Center replete with innovative ideas
Ichikawa Logistics Center began operations in 2010. What were some of your concerns when building a logistics base?
Ino
At the time, establishing a logistical service appropriate to our original needs was a matter of urgency for the TOMY Group.
What do you mean by “appropriate to our original needs”?
Ino
We were having some problems with delivery. Ordered products were arriving after the promised delivery date; sometimes the wrong product arrived. The cause of this problem was the 2006 merger of Takara and TOMY to form TOMY Co., Ltd. The new company had only the former TOMY’s existing logistics center with which to handle all logistics. With the handling volume doubling overnight, it’s small wonder we struggled.
Watanabe
Our shipping operations couldn’t keep up. Everyone was feeling the pressure. Later, when Mr. Ino joined, we started gradually shoring up our operations. The first year or so after the merger was a time of confusion, and the logistics center we’d been using was small and cramped. The decision was made to build Ichikawa Logistics Center and transfer logistics operations here.
Ino
We worked hard to create an environment that’s efficient and easy to work in, including introducing a state-of-the-art logistics system. To make the Center a fun place to work at, we put up huge pictures of LICCA, TOMICA and other products and characters. We made the facility look fun, as a toy maker should, rather than bleak and dreary as warehouses tend to be. The work floor is completely temperature-controlled and outfitted with a cafeteria and kiosks. We tried a lot of innovations that were rarely seen in the logistics industry at that time.
Ichikawa Logistics Center was a complete change from the old facility, smoothly functioning and spacious.Images of the TOMY group’s best-loved products and characters bring color to the work space.
An unexpected coincidence
We’ve heard that Ichikawa Logistics Center started recycling cardboard right at the outset. How did those activities begin?
Watanabe
Achievement of the recycling system in place today began with an unexpected coincidence. Our plan was to build the Center on a site in Shinminato, Chiba City. As it happened, the intended site lay next door to the headquarters of a used-paper collection operator.
Ino
We took advantage of this stroke of luck, even building a conveyor to send our accumulated cardboard directly into the used-paper collection operator’s premises. However, the 2008 financial meltdown squashed our plans to build the center in Shinminato. Ultimately the logistics center was built in Ichikawa instead. However, we asked the used-paper collection operator in Shinminato to continue working with us, processing the vast reams of cardboard we were discarding every day. As a matter of fact, cardboard output is typically voluminous, requiring inordinate man-hours and space just to fold and store. Cardboard processing is a chronic headache for the logistics industry.
So that’s when you installed an enormous cardboard compactor?
Ino
Right. Incidentally, the used-paper collection operator footed the bill for the capital-investment and maintenance costs associated with installing the equipment, as it enabled that company to recover and recycle the accumulated cardboard with high reliability. For our part, we were able to process our discarded cardboard with 100% recycling. The move was a win-win situation, good for both parties.
Watanabe
At Ichikawa Logistics Center, the compactor is housed indoors, so the compacted cardboard can’t be contaminated by wind and rain. High-Quality cardboard stores well, so it’s particularly favored by operators that purchase used paper.
Ino
Installing this huge compactor indoors was made possible by reinforcing the floor beams at the construction stage. If we had completed construction of the facility before installing the compactor, we couldn’t have built the recycling system we have now. The timing was perfect.
Process of cardboard collection
This is a dedicated conveyor for collecting cardboard. Cardboard cartons, opened and empty, are moved along on the conveyor.
In the huge compactor, the collected cardboard is compacted into blocks.
One block weighs an incredible 500 kg! When around 25 to 30 blocks are gathered up, they are collected by the collection operator. Cardboard is collected about twice a month (weekly during peak season). The enormous amounts of cardboard collected gives an idea of how much cardboard Ichikawa Logistics Center discards.
Packaging is recycled as plastic bags.
Cardboard isn’t all you recycle. I understand that you also recycle stretch film, which is used to prevent loads from shifting.
Ino
Stretch film is a plastic film that is wrapped around loads piled on pallets. This stretch film prevents loads from shifting and collapsing en route. Ichikawa Logistics Center discards about 1 metric ton of this used film every month.
Watanabe
In the past, used film was simply discarded as industrial waste. But in 2011, operators began collecting and purchasing it as a resource. Moreover, some two and a half years ago, Ichikawa Logistics Center had requested collection by a packaging material manufacturer, which recycles 100% of the used film to produce and sell plastic bags. The Center utilizes these recycled plastic bags in its warehouse, for sorting and processing trash and other waste.
Stretch film used in the product warehouse to prevent load shifting
Discarded stretch film and the plastic bags made by recycling it
Toward more sustainable logistical processes
Finally, can you tell us about any eco-friendly activities you’re considering?
Ino
We’re envisioning activities beyond the recycling of things such as cardboard and stretch film. Some other state-of-the-art logistics centers have solar panels on their roofs to generate solar power. We are currently in discussions with the owners of Ichikawa Logistics Center to move forward with this and other incremental measures.
Watanabe
We’re also working to improve shipping methods. When shipping to remote parts of Japan such as Hokkaido and Kyushu, we’re switching transportation modes, shipping by rail instead of trucks. We have been promoting this “modal shift” because it reduces not only cost but also CO2 emissions. Other initiatives are on the drawing board, including introducing and operating our own fleet of EV trucks.
Ino
Over the past 10 years or so, the momentum for environmental action has intensified in the logistics industry. Ichikawa Logistics Center was an early adopter of recycling activities, as we’ve just seen. Going forward, the Center will continue to incorporate steps in its daily operations, not only to improve efficiency and quality but also to achieve a sustainable society through logistics.
And That’s Not All!
The Recycling Activities of the TOMY Group
Plastic and metal scraps are turned into valuable resources, wasting nothing.
TOMYTEC is the only company in the TOMY Group that has a plant in Japan. Here, on the front lines of production, the Group is moving forward with activities to reduce waste and environmental impact. Plastic and metal scraps generated in manufacturing procedure are processed appropriately according to law and recycled to the furthest extent possible.
Runners generated during plastic molding is separated according to plastic grade and stored in predetermined locations within the plant.
Cut ends from fabrication of wheels for model trains and scraps of metal from mold production are sorted by material and stored in the plant, then transferred to specialist operators for recycling.
TOMY (THAILAND), the TOMY Group’s toy manufacturer in Thailand, is engaged in a battery of measures to reduce environmental impact. These include measures to reduce waste from manufacturing processes and activities to preserve the environment. In October 2024, TOMY (THAILAND) launched a program to turn waste copper, which was previously discarded, into spray masks. Copper waste is generated from EDM* masters, which are used to produce the metal molds necessary to form product parts. By turning this copper into spray masks, they can reuse the copper on-site during product painting processes. TOMY (Thailand) will continue to bring smiles to the faces of children around the world through eco-friendly production of toys and Asobi.
*Electrical Discharge Machining: A type of metal processing in which molds are cut using electrical energy.
Copper scraps generated when fabricating molds using an EDM master are collected and cleaned to remove all contaminants.
The cleaned copper powder is placed in a water tank, where the copper is separated from impurities using electricity. The spray mask blanks are then manufactured (see photo at right).
Holes are punched where spraying takes place and production of the mask is complete.
Correct Sorting and Recycling is a Job for the Office, Too!
We’re not just advancing recycling in warehouses and factories. At TOMY Group offices, employees sort trash finely into trash cans by trash category. Before disposing of PET drink bottles, they remove the labels and caps. The TOMY Group also conducts a raft of activities to raise recycling awareness in each employee in the course of their daily duties.
Plastic, paper, wood, disposable lunch boxes, cans, bottles… These and other waste generated during normal work and breaks are carefully sorted for disposal.
Toy samples no longer needed are also deposited in the appropriate collection boxes. Specified boxes are also provided for items that employees do not know how to properly discard.
TOMY Group offices also participate in a campaign to donate vaccines to children based on the volume of PET bottle caps recycled. Detailed sorting of PET bottles is also an aim of this campaign. In the October 2024 cap collection, 275 kg of bottle caps were collected, enabling the Group to donate enough vaccines for 137.5 children.
Revenues from the collected PET bottle caps are donated to the Japan Committee, Vaccines for the World’s Children (JCV), which sends donate vaccines to supported countries. The collected bottle caps themselves are recycled as plastic.
This poster in Japanese (the 2023 version is shown here) is posted in TOMY offices. Thanks to vigorous efforts to raise awareness, activities to donate vaccines have become thoroughly entrenched in the TOMY Group.
Clear indications are posted to make it easy for employees to sort their trash. Proper sorting of office trash is one way the TOMY Group is promoting recycling and reducing environmental impact.
Kobayashi General Affairs Team, General Affairs Group TOMY
By collecting PET bottle caps as part of sorting our trash, we are turning trash into vaccines for the children of the world. So we’re not just caring for the environment, we’re also contributing to society. I believe that activities such as these are serving to spread awareness of trash sorting throughout the Group.
From Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture to every part of Japan: 
Clear indications are posted to make it easy for employees to sort their trash. Proper sorting of office trash is one way the TOMY Group is promoting recycling and reducing environmental impact.
KobayashiGeneral Affairs Team, General Affairs Group
TOMY
By collecting PET bottle caps as part of sorting our trash, we are turning trash into vaccines for the children of the world. So we’re not just caring for the environment, we’re also contributing to society. I believe that activities such as these are serving to spread awareness of trash sorting throughout the Group.
MinamiAdministrative Support Team
TOMY IBIS