Reducing Waste at Plants and Other Facilities / Production, Logistics, and Other Initiatives

Reducing Waste at Plants and Other Facilities

Daihatsu has made efforts to recycle scrap metal, waste plastic, and other waste materials generated during production, and as a result, now recycles 97.2% of waste material released from plants. In order to reuse such waste material as resources, however, recovery, transportation, and recycling require further energy usage. To address this issue, we have focused on “reduce” in order to decrease the amount of waste generated, promoting the effective use of resources. When punching out parts from steel plates using a press, for example, it is possible to curtail the generation of metal scrap and achieve efficient production using less material and less energy by adjusting the positioning of the molds and the sizes of the steel plates. By adopting such innovations, we will shift the focus of our initiatives for reducing waste to developing technology for manufacturing cars with less material.

Types of Waste Material and Recycling Methods

2022 (calendar year) data
Type (Main Content) Percentage of Total Waste Processing Method
Scrap metal 83.86% Payable for recycle, profit
Sludge 7.08% Payable for recycle, intermediate processing
Waste plastic 3.00% Payable for recycle, profit
Waste oil 2.67% Payable for recycle, profit
General Materials 1.55% Payable for recycle, profit
Waste acids 0.39% Payable for recycle, profit
Waste alkalis 0.37% Payable for recycle
Others 1.07% —

Waste Material Processing Flows
2022 (calendar year) data

Production, Logistics, and Other Initiatives: Fundamental Approach

The manufacture of automobiles entails the use of a variety of different resources, including metals such as iron and aluminum, resin, glass, and rubber. By focusing on details even at the level of 1 mm, 1 g, 1 yen, and 1 second in processes including development, manufacture, and logistics, Daihatsu is pursuing the creation of small-size cars using minimal resources.
In addition to vehicle manufacturing that use minimal resources, based on various automotive recycling laws and regulations in Japan and overseas, we aim from the design and development stages to develop cars that facilitate the implementation of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) to promote the proper processing of end-of-life vehicles. We will also encourage the expansion of car-to-car recycling in which we reuse resources recovered from end-of-life vehicles in the manufacture of new vehicles.

Examples of Initiatives

Reducing the Size of Vehicle Instruction Manuals

Daihatsu is gradually reducing the size of our vehicle instruction manuals, thereby reducing the use of paper resources.

○: Started lightweight (FY)
Models 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Hijet Caddie ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ End of sales
Mira e:S   ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Mira Tocot     ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
Tanto, Rocky       ○ ○ ○ ○
Taft, Gran Max         ○ ○ ○
Hijet Atrai, Hijet Truck, Hijet Cargo           ○ ○

Reducing Waste by Improving Drive Shaft Packaging (Adopting Returnable Containers and Increasing Loading Efficiency)

Daihatsu developed special trays for transporting drive shafts that are highly loadable, reusable, and lightweight. As a result, we have succeeded in reducing the weight of our drive shaft packaging waste by 97.4%.