2021 Volume 47 Issue 3 Pages 23-44
This paper examined how public-private partnerships on the PET bottle recycling system impact the existing PET bottle recycling system in Japan. The recycling of PET bottles for beverage use (“bottle to bottle recycling”) accounts for only 20% of the total PET bottle recycling in Japan in 2020. This result is caused by the following factors: 1) the quality disparity among collection methods, 2) structure of PET bottle recycling industry in Japan, 3) the unique trading market for used PET Bottle in Japan, and 4) the burden of primary sorting and collection costs by local governments. Therefore, we considered that overcoming these issues is essential for the advancement of PET bottle recycling in Japan.
On this basis, we examined the meaning of the recent public-private partnership on the PET bottle collecting and recycling loop. And we considered that the public-private partnership, while contributing to the recycling structure advancing, has the following problems: 1) these may only move the excellent results of the existing recycling system to their loops, depending on the target of collection; 2) the recycling industry will become more oligopolistic because only a few recyclers who have and can invest in leading-edge technology for high-level recycling in Japan ; 3) The new transaction of the closed-loop will re-define the price mechanism in the recycling market in Japan, and the transaction price will soar; 4) As a result of 3), small and medium-sized PET bottle recyclers in Japan may withdraw from the business or go bankrupt in near future, and then new issues such as the handling of low-quality products may arise; 5) As the closed-loop spreads, the collection cost may be moved into beverage manufacturers more, and they won’t be able to avoid thinking about passing the cost on to beverage prices.
