Unilever Japan and Kao Corporation will launch a collaborative recycling program to help create a circular economy for plastic packaging. Starting from June 1, 2021, the companies will collect used bottles of personal and home care products in Higashi-Yamato City, Tokyo, which will then be recycled to make new bottles. This city, which has signed a collaborative agreement with Unilever Japan, has been chosen due to its renowned recycling initiatives.
As a part of its growth strategy Unilever Compass, Unilever aims to help creating a waste-free world. By 2025, the company is aiming to halve its use of virgin plastic and help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells. Since 2019, Unilever Japan has been using recycled plastic in its product packaging including LUX, Dove, and CLEAR. In addition, Unilever Japan launched the UMILE Program in November 2020, where used packaging is collected at retail stores, and then recycled to make novelties that are then given back to consumers to support sustainable living.
In April 2019, Kao launched its new ESG strategy—the Kirei Lifestyle Plan—which helps reduce the impact on the environment throughout the product lifecycle of its range of products. The Japanese word 'kirei' describes something that is both clean and beautiful. For Kao, Kirei not only encapsulates appearance, but also attitude—to create beauty for oneself, other people, and for the world around us. With this in mind, Kao is striving to reduce the amount of plastic used to make packaging, with the adoption of the 4Rs: Reduce, Replace, Reuse, and Recycle. In September 2019, Kao announced that it was aiming to help realize a plastic resource circulating society through "Innovation in Reduction" and "Innovation in Recycling."
Unilever Japan and Kao have been promoting plastic resource circulation by winning the support of a wide variety of stakeholders, including consumers, retailers, recycling firms, and local governments. However, in Japan, most plastic packaging is not recycled to create new packaging. This is due to various reasons, such as the varying types of plastic used for personal and home care products depending on the manufacturer, the lack of existing infrastructures to sort and collect used plastic packaging by material type, and the lack of recycling technology that can prevent degradation in plastic material quality when recycling.
In response, Unilever Japan and Kao are exploring methods to sort and collect used plastic packaging in a way that makes it easy for consumers to participate while still being commercially sustainable. The companies are also contributing toward the formulation of guidelines for personal and home care product packaging that are based on the know-how acquired through the program and which can be shared and utilized by different companies in different industries.
As members of the Japan Clean Ocean Material Alliance (CLOMA) , Unilever Japan and Kao hope to win the understanding and collaboration of a wide range of stakeholders. They are also aiming to share the learnings from the program to other countries and regions, including the guideline for product packaging, and as a new solution to help realize a circular economy.
