In 1950, ECONECOL Inc., formerly known as SANOMARUKA Corp. was started as a sole proprietorship by our founder Katsuyoshi Sano, in the city of Fujinomiya, Japan. The Company’s first business, same as many at the post war period, was scrap collector. The Company had its ups and downs. And yet, as the Japan recovered from the wound of war and started to build the foundation of the economy, the Company expanded its capacity as well.

In 1979, beginning to gain some major clients such as the National Railways and the Self-Defense Forces in the region, SANOMARUKA reorganized the Company into a joint-stock corporation. Further, gained the trust and support from the local communities, the Company moved its headquarter to Yamamiya Industrial Park in 1989.

Our Company’s jump start began on 1992, with the establishment of Foreign Trade division. SANOMARUKA was one of the first group that started to export ferrous scrap to outside Japan. Moreover, the Company was the first on to begin the waste paper export, second one to acquire the ISO14001 (recognized in 1998) among the recyclers in the country.

The Company’s expansion continued in the 90’s and later period. Raising the “zero emission” as our ultimate goal, the Company established several recycling facilities. Started with the installation of a 1,250 horse power shredder machine, the Company introduced car recycling facilities in 1998, RPF production (fuel tablet made of shredder residue) facilities in 2001, copier and pachinko recycling line in 2002, and more complex facilities that crushed and sort shredder residue in 2003. These facilities were set up to separate recycled materials such as ferrous and non-ferrous metals, recyclable plastics from landfill waste.

Besides to be one of the major recyclers, the Company has another aspect of attracting the various industries. In the year of 2000, with Fujitsu General and 6 other major home appliance manufactures, the Company established a joint venture of “Fuji Eco Cycle Corp.” known as FEC to pursuit recycling of home appliance. Followed by the FEC, the Company agreed to establish ARBIZ Corp. with the Japan’s top auto auctioneer USS Corp. in 2003 for car recycling in Nagoya region. In 2007, part of Foreign Trade division was spin off to be 3WM Corp., that specializes in exporting of pre-owned vehicles and auto parts.

To cast of the family business, SANOMARUKA changed its corporate name to ECONECOL in 2007. Later, more companies came under the ECONECOL group: Kuroda Recycle, one of the major recyclers in Hokkaido area joined our group in 2008; Oikos Inc. was established to strengthen assembly of scrap in Hamamatsu region in 2009.