By Trina Tan
Japan is looking to tighten its industry standards for PET carbonated beverage bottles, and containers for personal care products.
With the aim of promoting the sustainability of plastics products, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) released draft standards in March 2024, leaving industry players a month to submit feedback for the government’s consideration. While exact dates for publication and implementation have yet to be announced, the finalised standards are expected to be out before the end of this year.
The new draft standard specifically for PET carbonated beverage bottles requires them be made from PET without additives, or when a substance other than PET is added, the resulting bottle must be hygienic and recyclable.
At least 15 per cent of the bottle weight must contain post-industrial recycled (PIR) material or post-consumer recycled (PCR) material that meet the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee standard (JIS Q 14021), or the equivalent amount of biomass-based plastics.
In order to make recycling easier, PET bottles must be colourless. In addition, for PET bottles with handles, the said handles have to be made of PET without colour, or PP or PE – which has to have a specific gravity below 1.0.
Any printing on the bottle has to be minimal, containing only information such as product expiration dates, manufacturing facility codes, or lot number. The ink on the labels cannot adhere to PET bottles and the labels cannot be aluminium-laminated. The labels on the bottles also cannot contain PVC and must be made of materials that can be separated from the bottles during the recycling material-separation process, such as air separation and washing.
PET bottle caps cannot contain PVC and must have PE or PP with a specific gravity below 1.0 as a main component. For the popular Japanese soda drinks that have a glass ball in the opening (which is used to create a seal to keep the soda’s carbonation and used as a cap so the soda stays fizzy), instructions on how to remove the glass ball must be clearly indicated on the label.
In an attempt to ‘forcefully’ reduce plastics consumption, there are also strict weight limits for PET bottles – excluding cap and label – based on their type and capacity. For example, heat-resistant PET bottles of capacities below 500ml have weight limits calculated according to the formula V(ml) x 0.0164 + 16.8. For PET bottles of capacities above 1.5 litres, the weight limit is calculated using the formula V(ml) x 0.0098 + 33.9.
Personal care
While the draft standard is titled as being ‘for household cosmetics containers’, the document does elaborate and explain that this standard governs containers for products such as shampoos, hair treatments, body wash and hand soap (i.e. personal care products), and covers requirements for caps, dispensers, spouts and ancillary parts.
The container itself (excluding caps, dispensers, spouts etc) must be made of PET, PP or PE. Where PP or PE is used, the specific gravity of the container has to be less than 0.97.
The weight of the plastics used in each container, when divided by the content of each container, must be 0.125g per ml or less. At least 10 per cent of the bottle weight must contain PIR, PCR or biomass plastics.
Where PET is the main material used in the container, the container must be colourless. If PP or PE is used, then the container should either be colourless or coloured white. No printing except for laser printing is allowed on the container – again, excluding caps, dispensers, spouts etc, which must be separable from the main container.
Separate standards are specified for refillable personal care packaging containers or, as the document refers to them, ‘bottle-shaped containers intended for refilling cosmetics from the main container’.
For such refillable packaging containers, the weight of the plastics used in each container, when divided by the content of each container, must be 0.055g per ml or less. At least 60 per cent of the bottle weight must contain PIR, PCR, or biomass plastics.
Pushing innovation
As most Japanese brand owners and packaging manufacturers already use PET bottles and containers that are colourless to aid a clean recycling stream – relying on separable coloured shrink wraps for brand differentiation and product advertising – these aspects of the two proposed draft standards are not expected to cause many ripples in the market. Instead, they are seen as merely the government’s way of ensuring this industry practice is fully enforced throughout the country and guaranteeing a clean waste source for recycling.
Where further pressure is being exerted is on the minimum weight percentages that are needed for PIR, PCR or biomass plastics. Not only will this further grow demand for such plastics, in turn making the recycling and biomass plastics industries more economically viable, it will also push technological advances in creating even higher quality recycled materials and biomass plastics.
These draft standards are in essence the result of Japan’s ‘Plastics Resource Circulation Act’, which came into effect in April 2022, and the ‘Act Concerning Sophistication of Recycling Business, etc, to Promote Resource Circulation’, which was enacted in May 2024 – collectively, the foundations for the government’s promotion of resource circulation and circular economy through business collaboration.
This strategic direction by the government was first taken in March 2021 when METI, the Ministry of the Environment, and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) formed the Japan Circular Economy Partnership (J4CE). The idea was to strengthen public-private collaboration in Japan and promote initiatives among a wide range of stakeholders, including domestic companies. As of December 2024, more than 200 companies and industry associations have participated in J4CE.
There is a very deliberate nurturing of public-private dialogue, knowledge exchanges, and the encouragement of business partnerships through J4CE by the Japanese government, which has recognised that it is not enough to just create and try to execute standards the law-and-order way. This has yielded very interesting initiatives throughout Japan, and opportunities for foreign players in the sustainable packaging arena looking for likeminded collaborators.
