Bin-e AI recycling box picked for KDDI lithium-ion collection

Bin-e is a recycling box developed and made by Poland's Bine and distributed in Japan by Forcetec. It uses AI image recognition to sort what people drop in, a 50-inch digital screen to explain what goes where, and internal sensors plus connectivity to show fill levels on a dashboard. For this effort, Forcetec is also applying TOPPAN fire-suppression film to the collection inner box, a safety measure it added for lithium-ion recovery and not part of Bin-e's standard specification.

The choice of location is the point. The first Bin-e in Japan went into the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building under a June 2026 campaign to recover lithium-ion products. Placing the second unit near a Lawson store moves the collection point from a government building into a place people already visit in daily life, which is what the partners want to test. Behind that test sits a safety problem: used lithium-ion products that are not collected properly can catch fire during waste processing, and they also contain resources such as lithium, cobalt and nickel that are worth recovering.

The roles are split across several companies. KDDI runs and publicizes the collection and handles phone collection and recycling; Lawson publicizes the effort; JR East Building provides the space; JX Metals Circular Solutions and Future Ecology handle transport and recycling of the collected items; Forcetec supplies and supports Bin-e. Whether the model spreads may depend on what the partners learn from this near-store test and whether they judge it worth expanding to other areas.