Green carpet made from recycled PET bottles replaces red carpet at Tokyo Intl Film Festival

21-Oct-08

Japan's Teijin Ltd and Coca-Cola (Japan) Company Ltd produced a "Green Carpet" for the opening ceremony of the 21st Tokyo International Film Festival. The Green Carpet, made completely from approximately 18,000 PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, replaced the traditional red carpet at the ceremony held on October 18, 2008. The 1,418-meter Green Carpet laid for the event were made completely from ECOPET®, a material manufactured by Teijin Fibers Limited using recycled plastic bottles. The volume of material used for the carpet is equivalent to approximately 18,000 half-liter plastic bottles. In addition, Green Ties, Greenchiefs and Green Ribbons-items made exclusively for film festival personnel during the event-were made from polyester fibers produced with ECO CIRCLE®, a closed-loop recycling system developed by Teijin Fibers. Coca-Cola (Japan) Company, which has been sponsoring the film festival for four years, strongly supports this year's environmental theme. Coca-Cola (Japan) Company organized exhibitions at the festival to further raise eco-awareness, including an energy-saving vending machine called the e-40, easy-to-understand panels illustrating the processes of recycling bottles and cans, and bins used for the dedicated collection of empty bottles and cans for a week.