The Japanese plastics market has gone through an accelerating shift to replace plastics with recycled materials and bioplastics.

People’s awareness on marine plastic waste and the importance of packaging materials in protecting product and food hygiene have pushed the development of green plastics. Restaurant chains began to use bioplastics straws. Automotive industry included the use of recycled plastics. Efforts are being made to construct a chain that involves the entire supply chain, from plastics waste collection to recycling and reuse.

Whole chain across industries to circulate materials

The Sustainable Plastics Initiative (SusPla), a Japanese organization, was founded in 2024 to expand the use of recycled plastics. The focus is to establish a "plastics resources circular ecosystem through materials recycling originating in Japan".

The organization has brought together Japan's leading recyclers and brand owners, manufacturers, trading companies, universities and research institutes, governmental institutions, etc. from a wide range of industries including automotive, home electronics, chemicals, plastics molding and processing as well as textiles.

Expanding use of recycled plastics in various sectors

Kao, a leading daily necessities manufacturer in Japan, has rapidly increased its plastics recycling rate from 1% in 2021 to 8% in 2024. Regarding "the use of fossil-derived plastics in packaging containers", it has set the target to reach its peak by 2030. It is committed to expanding the use of recycled materials, as reuse is also a major direction of technology development besides reduction and replacement.

As one of the plastics-consuming companies who now venture into export of molding materials, Konica Minolta, once known as a camera manufacturer, has started a recycled plastics manufacturing business combining its own sensing and AI technologies. Meanwhile, in the food industry, the reuse of recycled materials in PET bottle beverages has become common and has taken root in the market.

For automotive industry, the use of recycled materials and bioplastics is currently drawing attention. As automotive plastics come in various grades, it is considered extremely difficult to apply recycled materials in the sector. Since the implementation of the European End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) regulations, the whole industry, including automobile manufacturers and Tier 1 enterprises, have given efforts in utilizing recycled materials.

A mono-material car seat cover made of PVC developed by Toyota. Tier 1 enterprises are also strengthening the development of easy-to-recycle design.

Adaptation of bioplastics becomes popular

In the "Plastics Resources Recycling Strategy" formulated in 2019, Japan proposed to introduce about 2 million tons of bioplastics by 2030.

Starbucks Coffee Japan has stated that "compared with FSC certified paper straws, it is expected that bioplastics straws can reduce CO2 emissions over the whole life cycle, and halve the amount (weight ratio) of straw waste discharged by stores", emphasizing the environmental adaptability of bioplastics.

The fully introduced paper straws have been replaced by bioplastic straws, taking both drinking comfort and environmental impact into account. Paper straws attracted much attention once as a symbol of plastic removal, but returning to plastics with the prefix "bio-" has now become the hot topic in the industry.

Overview of Japanese plastics market

Demand for domestic products in Japan continues to shrink. According to the Japan Plastics Industry Federation, domestic plastics production was 8.396 million tons in 2024, which recorded a year-on-year decrease of 4%. It has decreased by 21% compared with 10 years ago and by 40% compared with 20 years ago, which is significant.

This is due to various factors such as the increase of imported products, the hollowing out of downstream products, declining population, and GX initiative (thinning, volume reduction, reuse, etc.).

Although plastic exports in Japan have stagnated at a level of less than 4 million tons per year, imports have steadily increased since 2018, and reached 3 million tons in 2024.

The largest imported item is PET, with more than 980,000 tons imported in 2024 and nearly half of them were from Taiwan (China). In terms of polypropylene, back 20 years ago in 2004, there were no regions from which Japan imported more than 10,000 tons per year; but by 2014, it imported over 10,000 tons from Thailand, South Korea and Saudi Arabia; by 2024, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and China also joined them, bringing the total import volume reached more than 140,000 tons from the 6 regions.

In this context, discussions on the restructuring of Japan's aging and less competitive petrochemical complexes continue, and in order to ensure stable procurement, there has been an increased number of plastic processing giants who are considering adopting imported products as a secondary source.

Discussions on the reorganization of petrochemical complexes are ongoing. The photo shows Mizushima Industrial Complex.

CHINAPLAS as an opportunity for learning latest plastic technologies

CHINAPLAS 2026, which will be held in Shanghai, China on April 21-24, will feature global plastics and rubber companies, including those from Japan, which will be a valuable opportunity to learn about their latest technologies and development.