REUSABLE GLASS BOTTLES IN JAPAN

We drink various kinds of beverages every day. While what we drink are liquids, containers such as cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles, and paper cartons are necessary for packaging and transporting them.

Beverage containers can also be classified as either one-way or returnable. One-way containers are used only once and recycled: collected, crushed, melted, and turned back into a raw material. Recycling can help reduce waste, but requires a vast amount of energy. On the other hand, returnable containers can be reused as they are after being washed.

Until several decades ago, beverage containers in Japan were mostly glass bottles, and so Japan still has a functional bottle reuse system run by the beverage industry without administrative or financial help from government. For example, all manufactures of Japanese sake (rice wine) use the same type of 1,800-ml bottle, and so they will accept any brand of used bottles. The bottles are washed, refilled, labeled and shipped to market.

This same type of 1,800 ml bottle is used not only for sake, but also for vinegar, sweet sake, soy sauce, and other seasonings. That is, the reuse system functions beyond the beverage industry, thanks to bottle dealers, who make their profit by collecting and washing used bottles and supplying them to the manufacturers of alcohol, non-alcoholic beverages, and seasonings.

In addition, 99 percent of beer bottles are collected and reused, thanks to a deposit system set up by the beer industry. Beer bottles in Japan come in three sizes (large, medium and small), and are divided into two basic types, Kirin and non-Kirin. Only Kirin Beverage Corporation, one of the largest beer companies in Japan, uses its own bottles, while other manufacturers use non-Kirin bottles. This situation makes it easy to attain such a high rate of beer bottle collection and reuse.

The bottle reuse system was accepted as conventional wisdom in Japanese life even when people had never heard of recycling and environmental issues.

In the last several decades, however, the reusable glass bottle situation has changed dramatically due to the emergence of cans, paper cartons, and plastic bottles. For example, glass bottles, which accounted for nearly 70 percent of beer containers in 1988, became less popular and lost their lead to cans about a decade ago. Now bottles account for a little over 20 percent and cans more than 60 percent. In the case of other carbonated beverages, the share of glass bottles decreased from 17 percent in 1989 to only four percent in 1994.

One-way bottles are also on the rise. In 1952, 70 percent of bottles were returnable and 30 percent one-way. But these figures switched places around the time of the oil crisis in 1972.

Before the oil crisis, about 90 percent of sake was sold in 1,800-ml glass bottles, but today it is sold mainly in 720-ml and 300-ml bottles. Since no standards exist for these smaller bottles, sake breweries are free to make their own bottles. These bottles, however, can be used only once and at best are collected to be recycled as cullet, a material for making new bottles.

Out of the total volume of sake shipments in 2002, 1,800-ml bottles accounted for 37 percent, and small and mid-sized bottles 18 percent. Since a 1,800-ml bottle is equivalent to six 300-ml bottles, the number of mid-sized bottles thus far exceeds the number of 1,800-ml ones. In fact, the number of 1,800-ml bottles has declined sharply to 470 million in 1999 from 1.5 billion in the 1980s.

This drastic decline has had much to do with changes in our lifestyle. For instance, the number of supermarkets has increased, and more women now work outside the home. People used to have liquor stores deliver beverages to their home and collect empty their bottles. But now, people go to supermarkets and buy beverages on their way home from work. It has become too burdensome for them to take empty bottles to the supermarket for recycling.

Thus, the market is dominated by products in easy-to-carry containers such as 1-litter plastic bottles of soy sauce and canned beer. Retailers also opt for cans or paper containers that are easy to put on the shelf.

In Japan, 60 percent of domestic waste is containers. Although reducing container waste is an urgent priority, one-way containers have taken over from returnable ones.

Today, amid increasing waste problems and global warming, glass bottles are drawing attention again. Various efforts have been made to recycle one-way bottles and to promote returnable ones.

Once collected, one-way bottles are crushed and processed into cullet. Currently about 80 percent of glass bottles are made from cullet. Transparent and brown bottles are recycled as cullet, while imported wine bottles and other types of bottles with different colors are recycled into glass wool, tiles, and blocks.

In an attempt to make more environment-friendly bottles, "100 percent ecological bottles" have been introduced, using cullet of various colors to account for 90 percent or more of their content. These are used for sake, wine, whiskey, and other beverages.

In another attempt to promote returnable bottles, slim, lightweight beer bottles have recently appeared, and these should help alleviate problems associated with heavy conventional bottles that consume more energy for transportation. For example, Asahi Breweries, Ltd. has developed a 335-ml bottle named "Steiny," which has achieved about a 90 percent rate of bottle collection and reuse.

We can see similar movements in rural areas. For example, the Niigata Container Service Union was established in July, 2002. The union's 15 participating breweries in Niigata Prefecture decided to use the same type of 720-ml bottle to make collection and reuse easier. Previously bottles were only recycled as cullet.

The Seikatsu Club Consumers' Co-operative Union launched a bottle reuse network in 1994, which reuses standardized "R-marked" bottles. Between 1994 and 2000 the network collected about 18,000 tons of bottles, which saved more than about 800 million yen (about $7.3 million) of taxpayers' money and contributed significantly to the reduction of CO2 emissions.

If you switch from drinking 500 ml of beer from a can to drinking it from a returnable bottle, you reduce CO2 emissions by 130 grams. And, according to the calculation done by Japan Center for Climate Change Actions, if all beverage containers in Japan were replaced by returnable bottles, CO2 emissions would be reduced by about 57 percent and solid waste by about 1,250,000 tons compared with current levels. One estimate is that it would save about 150 billion yen ([about $1.4 billion], about 1,230 yen [$11.28] per capita per year) from waste disposal costs borne by the government.

Japan as a nation does not have a policy to promote returnable containers or a law pertaining to container deposit systems. Ironically, the exiting Law for Promotion of Sorted Collection and Recycling of Containers and Packaging actually has an adverse effect on the spread of returnable bottles.

There is not much incentive to use and reuse returnable bottles in the current system where municipalities spend taxpayers' money to recycle one-way containers such as plastic bottles. In other words, returnable bottles seem to cost relatively more because the one-way containers are in a sense subsidized by taxes.

Bottle reuse in Japan has been supported by bottle dealers who started to reuse empty bottles from imported liquor and beer by refilling them with sake back in the 19th century. However, these dealers' business now seems to be endangered due to the rapidly declining use of returnable bottles over the last few decades. It is imperative that the government, industry, corporations and consumers all cooperate to decide what should be the ideal situation with respect to beverage containers in a sustainable Japan. Only by doing so we can prevent the collapse of the well-established Japanese system in which bottles are reused without relying on taxes.

(Junko Edahiro)

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