AUTOS

Honda Branches Out With Recycling Venture: Japanese consumers may soon be able to buy Honda housewares as well as cars. Honda Motor Co., Japan’s fourth-biggest car maker, said it set up a new venture to recycle plastic bits left over from car production to make consumer items such as tables and chairs and simulated wood flooring. The joint venture, named Honda U.G.R. Co. and set up in partnership with trading company Itochu Corp. and other firms, will recycle plastic materials and develop technology and machinery for recycling. Although Japanese car makers do some internal recycling of plastic bumpers, this is the first time a top manufacturer has set up a venture of this scale for recycling byproducts of the car production process. The joint venture is capitalized at $3.6 million and is owned 45% by Honda, 25% by Itochu Corp., 15% by EIN-Engineering Co., a Japanese developer of recycling equipment, and 5% each by three Honda affiliates.