Materials / Functional Plastics Products

Bioplastics Highlighted in the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics

1. What Is the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics Formulated in May 2019?

Background

Plastics have brought tremendous convenience to our lives. The performance of plastic helps reduce food loss and improves energy efficiency. At the same time, plastics also pose global issues. Plastics manufacture consumes exhaustible resources such as fossil resources and offer low overall effective global utilization compared to other materials. More than several million tons of plastic waste enter our oceans every year.

Formulation of the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics

Against this background, Japan set forth the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics in May 2019. The core principle of this strategy is “3Rs + Renewable.” The following key goals are specified:

(1) Actively reduce wasteful use of resources by rationalizing avoidable use of plastics such as single-use container packaging and products.
(2) Switch from plastic container packaging and products to recycled and recyclable materials to increase sustainability.
(3) Use plastic products for as long as possible.
(4) Establish cyclic use (reuse by recycling or energy use through heat recovery where recycling is technically or economically impractical) by rigorously separating and collecting plastics after use via an effective and efficient recycling system.

Milestones Used in the Resource Circulation Strategy

The targets of the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics include doubling recycling by 2030 and maximizing use of biomass plastics (approximately two million tons). At present (2018), the volume of biomass plastics used in Japan is 44 thousand tons. A Bioplastic Adoption Roadmap has been established to set forth detailed approaches toward applications and materials and to promote increased adoption after examining current conditions and issues.

Milestones

Reduce	Reduced total outflow of single-use plastics by 25% by 2030
Reuse and Recycle	Adoption of designs that allow reuse and recycling by 2025
	Reuse and recycling of 60% of container packaging by 2030
	Achievement of effective use through 100% reuse or recycling of used plastic by 2035
Recycle and Biomass Plastics	Recycling doubled by 2030
Recycle and Biomass Plastics	Use of approximately two million tons of biomass plastics by 2030

Source: Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics (Summary), Ministry of the Environment

Amount of biomass plastics used in Japan

Bioplastic shipments in Japan (2018) Source: Japan BioPlastics Association

2. What Are Bioplastics?

One promising solution to the issues related to plastics is bioplastics. Bioplastics is the general term for both (1) biodegradable plastics that can be decomposed by microorganisms and (2) recyclable biomass plastics made from plant-based organic resources without fossil resources—an area in which Iwatani’s participation began early.

3. What Is the Mass Balance Approach Used to Promote the Use of Biomass?

One effective way to achieve the targets set forth in the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics is to adopt biomass plastics and materials recycled from waste plastic based on the mass balance approach. With conventional bio certification (segregation), only resin that uses entirely bio resources can be called “bio”; products that include 100% certified material can be labeled “Derived from 100% sustainable certified resources.” The mass balance approach allows mixing petrochemical-based materials with bio materials during production processes. The proportion of bio materials in the raw materials used is assigned to the final product. For example, if 100 tons of certified material are purchased, the amount of products that can be produced from that 100 tons can be shipped as ISCC MB certified products. Managing the overall balance between “In” (purchased amount of bio material) and “Out” (amount of certified resin sold) enables even petrochemical products to be shipped as 100% biomass.

Mass balance approach