Kirin Beverage and Toyota Tsusho sign ‘Agreement on Horizontal Recycling of PET Bottles’
Kirin Beverage Co. and Toyota Tsusho Corporation signed an ‘Agreement on Horizontal Recycling of PET Bottles’ on 24 March to accelerate bottle-to-bottle horizontal recycling of used PET bottles by collecting and recycling them into PET bottles. Horizontal recycling will start on 1 April 2023.
Under the agreement, used PET bottles collected in Maizuru City, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan are recycled into new PET bottles and used in some of the company’s products, after being crushed and washed by recycler Toyota Tsusho Corporation and recycled into rPET resins.
In February 2020, the Kirin Group formulated the Kirin Group Environmental Vision 2050, a new vision for strengthening social and corporate resilience, and declared its aim to create a society in which containers and packaging are sustainably recycled. In addition, the Kirin Group Plastics Policy states that 50% of the PET resin used in Japan should be recycled by 2027. The agreement is expected to enable the horizontal recycling of approximately 150 tonnes of PET bottles per year.
The items of cooperation in the agreement between Kirin Beverage and Toyota Tsusho include matters relating to the promotion and awareness-raising of citizens and others concerning the horizontal recycling of PET bottles; maintenance of the framework for horizontal recycling of PET bottles as well as other matters relating to the promotion of horizontal recycling of PET bottles and resource recycling.
