B to B Recycling: Creating New PET Bottles from Used Bottles

Lightweight and resealable, PET bottles have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. To make PET bottles 100% sustainable, we need everyone’s collaboration with proper sorting and collection. Suntory Holdings Limited’s Yuko Koshiishi, Senior General Manager of the Sustainability Management Division, explains.

Collaborative Effort for Making PET Bottles 100% Sustainable

Japan’s PET bottle recycling rate is 86%, which is high compared with some other parts of the world due to the community’s effort for sorting PET bottles from other waste. The technology to make new PET bottles from used PET bottles has advanced in recent years, and this has allowed us to implement “bottle to bottle” horizontal recycling.

“Horizontal recycling” refers to a recycling method where a used product is used as a feedstock to make the same product. The process of recycling used PET bottles into new PET bottles is called “B to B (Bottle to Bottle) recycling.” Suntory established the first technology for this in the Japanese beverage industry in 2011 and commercialized it in 2012.

Suntory is aiming to use only recycled materials or plant-derived materials, and to use zero petroleum-derived raw materials, for all PET bottles it uses around the world by 2030. Suntory is also focusing on innovation for more efficient recycling technology with lower environmental impact that is capable of reducing CO₂ emissions compare to the existing technology.
Starting from March 2022, we have included the message “Bottles are resources! Towards a Sustainable Bottle” in the labels of all PET bottle products in Japan to communicate consumers that PET bottles are not waste but a resource that can be recycled many times.

Introducing new logo along with a call for a “Let’s make it Sustainable, Suntory” (January 2022)

A Box with the Vending Machine Is a Recycling Bin

Drinking up the beverage and rinsing the bottle is key to collection of PET bottles for horizontal recycling. While PET bottles collected from households tend to be very clean, bottles collected apart from home recycling service such as office buildings and convenience stores are often not in a good state for recycling as a resource. If there is still drink left in PET bottles or cigarette butts in them, they cannot be recycled even if they are collected. It would help if people were more conscientious about recycling at their office and out of home.

The box next to vending machines are not waste bins but are “recycling bins” meant for empty bottles and cans. Some people throw trash misunderstanding that they are waste bins, but the PET bottles collected from these recycling bins are a valuable resource. We ask that everyone to please only place empty PET bottles and cans in the recycling bins and never trash. And if the cap is removed from PET bottles, they are also easier to crush and more bottles can be transported at one time, which also helps reduce CO₂ emissions. I strongly hope that everyone remember to “Drink up, Caps off, Bottles in the recycling bin”.