ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) and its wholly owned subsidiary Belong Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Koichiro Nishimura, CEO; hereinafter “Belong”) which operates an online used mobile device distribution business, have entered into a capital and business alliance with Electronic Recyclers International Inc. (headquartered in California, U.S.A.; John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO; hereinafter “ERI”), the largest material resource recovery, ITAD, mobility and responsible recycler of electronics company in the United States.
Belong and ERI have agreed to establish a joint venture named ERI Japan Inc. (hereinafter “ERI Japan”) by approximately April 2026 to develop a business for recycling a wide range of IT equipment in Japan.
In addition, ITOCHU is planning to acquire a partial equity stake in ERI and, going forward, aims to build a circular IT equipment business utilizing advanced circular technologies not only in Japan but also in the United States.

It is estimated that the global IT asset disposition market was approximately US$18.4 billion in 2024, and it is expected that its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will remain above 7%, with the market reaching US$26.6 billion by 2029.*¹ In Japan, the market is estimated to grow from approximately US$1.07 billion in 2024 to US$2.14 billion in 2033.*² In recent years, particularly in Europe, there has been a growing movement to require manufacturers and other companies to use recycled materials, including IT equipment. In Japan, the Act Concerning Sophistication of Recyc-ling Business, etc. to Promote Resource Circulation was enacted in November 2025*³ to strengthen the industrial competitiveness of resource circulation, and support for recycling businesses utilizing advanced technologies is growing.

ERI was founded in the United States in 2002. It operates the largest IT asset disposition and e-waste recycling business in the country. With eight locations in the United States, ERI’s strengths lie in its ability to provide circular solutions ranging from data destruction and the advanced shredding of end-of-life IT equipment to remarketing, recycling, logistics and regulatory compliance services. In addition to its achievement of highly transparent chain of custody management ensuring the tracking of each IT asset using proprietary software, ERI also possesses technologies leveraging AI image recognition and robotic arms to automatically and accurately sort shredded materials. Since its establishment, ERI has recycled more than 2.5 billion pounds of e-waste, and it has contributed significantly to the realization of a circular economy.

ITOCHU established Belong in 2019*⁴ and has since expanded its distribution (reuse) business for used mobile devices, mainly in the Japanese market. Through Belong, ITOCHU will now establish ERI Japan with ERI and develop a collaborative business focused on the recycling of a wide range of IT equipment, including mobile devices in Japan. In establishing ERI Japan, ITOCHU will actively utilize its Virtual Office*⁵ in-house cross-organizational collaboration platform to integrate the expertise and networks of group companies in the recycling field, while also considering collaborations with a diverse range of partners engaged in IT equipment recycling and reverse logistics in Japan. By combining ERI’s expertise in the recycling business and technologies cultivated in the United States with the networks of the ITOCHU Group and its partners in Japan and overseas, ERI Japan aims to enhance the schemes for procuring end-of-life IT equipment and selling recovered resources, and it aims to optimize reverse logistics, increasing its efficiency.

Under its “Sampo-yoshi” (“good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for society”) corporate philosophy, the ITOCHU Group works to strengthen initiatives and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, while listening closely to the opinions of all stakeholders, including consumers, markets and society. This philosophy and these initiatives have been used as a case study at Harvard Business School, one of the world’s leading business schools.*⁶ Going forward, ITOCHU will help establish a recycling-oriented society by working with ERI to develop expertise and state-of-the-art advanced recycling technologies cultivated in the Unites States and collaborate with its partners, including recycling business operators and other players in the reverse logistics industry in Japan.