NAGOYA: Cardboard partitions are attracting attention as shields to prevent the infection of the novel coronavirus via droplets among people staying at disaster shelters following the recent heavy rains that hit some regions in Japan.

An increasing number of Japanese companies are developing such cardboard products, which can be assembled easily, change their shapes freely and can be recycled.

Kato Danboru Co. developed a cardboard partition product for use at shelters jointly with the city government of Noda, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, after the Tokyo-based company introduced to the municipality a desk partition product to prevent coronavirus infection.

The company plans to deliver to the municipality 2,100 sets of the cardboard partition product, whose reference price is set at 4,300 yen per unit.

The jointly developed partition product is 2 meters in length and width and 1.45 meters in height, when assembled. It is designed for use by three people at a time.

“The design that allows anybody to assemble easily is enjoying a reputation,” an official of Kato Danboru said of the partition product.

The company is also proposing that a municipality in the northeastern Japan prefecture of Fukushima, which hosts a Kato Danboru plant, purchase the cardboard partition product.

In April, aerospace parts assembler Tohmei Industries Co., based in the city of Chita, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, launched a cardboard partition product for evacuees.

A set of the cardboard partition product, which is 2 meters in length, width and height and comes with connection parts, tapes, work gloves, magic markers and other items, is priced at 17,600 yen. The cardboard partitions are painted white to allow its users to feel a sense of cleanliness and spaciousness.   

After a massive earthquake and tsunami hit mainly northeastern Japan in March 2011, Tohmei Industries started selling beds, toilets and other items made of cardboard which were converted from cardboard for packing components.

With Tohmei Industries suffering a 30 percent year-on-year drop in sales due to falling aircraft-related demand amid the virus crisis, an official of the company said, “We want to diversify our business operations.”

JIJI Press