Sixteenth in a series of occasional articles on venture businesses

Staff writer

It was not foresight but a natural course of events that led Katsuhiko Akita to start Crystal Clay Corp., a recycling firm that creates colorful tiles out of glass waste.

Ordinary ceramic tiles are made of clay, but the composition of Crystal Clay's tiles is 60 percent to 70 percent glass waste -- bottles, cathode-ray tubes and automobile windshields -- of any color.

"I set up this particular company five years ago. But I've been engaged in the glass-waste collecting business for the past 25 years, and all those years I've wondered how I could make better use of the old glass," he says.

It took a technological breakthrough to blend clay and glass for calcination in the same kiln; it normally requires a temperature of 1,200 C to turn clay into tiles, while glass melts at 700 C.

The company solved the problem by adding other materials, developing technology to calcinate the mixed material at 1,000 C. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions in the manufacturing process have been reduced by 26 percent, according to the company.

This technological breakthrough, however, is no big deal, Akita says. "Other people didn't come to think about mixing clay and glass because glass companies regard clay as something they have nothing to do with, while those handling clay consider glass an article of a higher class," he says. "But those two materials are like brothers. After all, both come from the earth."

What is a big deal, he says, is the composition of the company's shareholders. Sunyou Co., Akita's glass-waste collecting firm, owns more than 50 percent of Crystal Clay. The remaining shares are held by 47 companies ranging from glass and beverage makers to bottlers, tile makers and construction firms.

In other words, the complete cycle of the glass-recycling process -- a mechanism especially hard to set up for a newcomer -- is well represented by Crystal Clay's ownership.

Since its foundation five years ago, the company has witnessed remarkable expansion.

For the fiscal year that ended in August, the company posted 609 million yen in sales, more than doubling what it sold the previous year. Today, its materials go into walls and floors and the surfaces of parking lots, station squares and shopping complexes such as Tokyo's Ebisu Garden Place.

Meanwhile, with the legal framework for recycling gradually taking shape, it appears that the prospects for Crystal Clay are nothing but bright.

A law requiring manufacturers to recycle packaging waste for items such as bottles and cans took effect last April. Also, a bill to create a law for recycling home appliances -- TVs, air conditioners, washing machines and refrigerators -- has been submitted to the current Diet session. It could take effect by April 2001.

Akita, however, says he is neither satisfied with his company's achievements nor optimistic about the future. "Indeed, our sales have been increasing and people say we've been doing quite well for a newcomer in this business," he says. "But sales have not been as good as I expected."

Given the very composition of its shareholders, he says, Crystal Clay should be able to do a much better job. "Our shareholders have so far mobilized only 0.01 percent of their capacity, and we've already created quite a remarkable product. Then, if they get themselves seriously down to business, it shouldn't be so difficult to achieve higher sales figures," he says.

The difficulty lies in the lack of public interest in recycling, he says, adding that the existing legal framework is not sufficient to boost public awareness. "There are many ways of participating in recycling. Consumers separating their garbage, firms collecting resource wastes, and companies incorporating recycled materials in their new products ... they are all participants in recycling," he says. "But the most important participation is to buy recycled products."