JEPLAN Group’s PET REFINE TECHNOLOGY Signs Agreement with Noboribetsu City, Shiraoi Town, Asahi Soft Drinks, and Japan Tec Horizontal Recycling of PET Bottles － Promoting the recycling of PET bottles in Japan through collaboration in bottle-to-bottle recycling － - JEPLAN, INC.

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PET REFINE TEDHNOLOGY CO., LTD. (Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer: Daigo Iga; hereinafter “PET REFINE TEDHNOLOGY”), a group company of JEPLAN, INC. (Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer: Masaki Takao; hereinafter “JEPLAN”), has entered into an agreement titled the “Agreement on the Implementation of Horizontal Recycling of PET Bottles” with Noboribetsu City (Mayor: Haruichi Ogasawara), Shiraoi Town (Mayor: Hideo Oshio), Asahi Soft Drinks Co., Ltd. (President and Representative Director: Taichi YONEME; hereinafter “Asahi Soft Drinks”), and Japan Tech Co., Ltd. (President: Eiichi Furusawa; hereinafter “Japan Tech”) on February 12, with the aim of promoting the circular use of PET bottles in Japan. A signing ceremony was also held on the same day to execute the agreement.

Under the agreement, used PET bottles collected from households in Noboribetsu City and Shiraoi Town will be recycled into new PET bottles by combining two recycling methods: chemical recycling *¹by PET REFINE TECHNOLOGY and mechanical recycling *²by Japan Tec, and recycled as raw materials for new PET bottles. Asahi Soft Drinks will utilize these two recycling methods to manufacture and sell beverage products that use recycled PET resin. The five parties will work together to improve the horizontal recycling rate of PET bottles. This initiative will not only reduce consumption of PET resin, a petroleum-derived resource that is the raw material for PET bottles, but will also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated in the manufacturing process.

Chemical recycling breaks down used PET bottles to the molecular level and removes impurities such as dyes and metals, enabling PET products that are difficult to recycle with conventional recycling due to their shape or other reasons to be recycled into recycled PET resin of quality equivalent to that derived from petroleum. In this initiative, PET REFINE TECHNOLOGY will chemically recycle the powdered PET components generated in the mechanical recycling process conducted by Japan TEC, thereby further improving the recycling rate compared to mechanical recycling alone. This two-step recycling method achieves a high horizontal recycling rate and promotes “bottle-to-bottle” resource recycling.

The JEPLAN Group will continue to promote collaboration with domestic and overseas partners to realize its mission of “We circulate our world”, and the group as a whole will strive to drive the circular economy.

*¹ A method to recycle PET bottles into raw materials of the same quality as petroleum-derived PET resin through a process of 
      breaking them down to the molecular level, removing impurities, and polymerizing them.
*² Recycling PET bottles by sorting, crushing, washing, and removing impurities under high temperature.


(from left to right) Yusuke Minokoshi, Executive Officer,PET REFINE TECHNOLOGY, Hirofumi Kobayashi, Director and General Manager, Corporate Planning Department,Japan Tec Co.,Ltd, Masahiro Miura, General Manager, CSV Strategy Department, Future Creation Department,Asahi Soft Drinks Co., Ltd., Hideo Oshio, Mayor, Shiraoi Town, Haruichi Ogasawara, Mayor, Noboribetsu City

■ Bottle to Bottle Recycling Initiatives Promoted by the JEPLAN Group
（https://bringbottle.jeplan.co.jp/）

The JEPLAN Group is promoting bottle-to-bottle recycling initiatives in cooperation with local governments throughout Japan. Our goal is to create a society in which objects that have reached the end of their useful lives are recycled as valuable resources rather than as waste. As part of this initiative, we are implementing the “Welcome Back PET Bottle Action”, an activity to collect PET bottles and recycle them back into PET bottles.
In Japan, approximately 650,000 tons*³of PET bottles are manufactured and sold annually. The recycling rate is about 85%*⁴However, only about 38%*⁵of PET bottles aresub recycled as PET bottles. We aim to recycle the remaining 62% of PET bottles from bottle-to-bottle, and are working to further promote resource recycling.

*^3,4,5PET Bottle Recycling Annual Report 2025 (PET Bottle Recycling Promotion Council): 
         https://www.petbottle-rec.gr.jp/nenji/2025/2025.pdf

■ Noboribetsu City (https://www.city.noboribetsu.lg.jp/)
Mayor: Haruichi Ogasawara

■ Shiraoi Town (https://www.town.shiraoi.hokkaido.jp/)
Mayor: Hideo Oshio

■ Asahi Soft Drinks Co., Ltd. (https://www.asahiinryo.co.jp/index.psp.html)
President: Taichi Yoneme

■ Japan Tech Co.,Ltd, (https://www.jtech-u.co.jp/)
President and Representative Director: Eiichi Furusawa

【The original press release is in Japanese】
【JEPLANプレスリリース】ペットリファインテクノロジー、登別市・白老町・アサヒ飲料・ジャパンテックと「ペットボトルの水平リサイクルの実施に関する協定書」を締結.PDF