Pla-Relay Project launches for chemical recycling for plastic in Ibaraki

Six organizations, including Kashima City in Ibaraki Prefecture, Refineverse, Mitsubishi Chemical, Toyo Seikan Group, Kewpie, and Kasumi, signed a partnership agreement to create a circular system for plastic containers in Ibaraki Prefecture. Dubbed the “Pla-Relay Project,” it functions as a relay-style demonstration experiment, where each party contributes to the continuous recycling of plastic materials.

The partnership marks Japan’s first collaboration that integrates local governments, collection companies, material manufacturers, container producers, food manufacturers, and retailers to form a resource circulation system.

Recycling plastic packaging remains a significant environmental challenge. Unlike cans, PET bottles, glass, and cardboard, which are easily identifiable and recyclable through material recycling (where used containers are cleaned, crushed, and reprocessed into the same type of raw material), plastic containers present a more complex issue. They may appear similar but often consist of different materials, making separation and recycling difficult.

To address this, key players across the manufacturing, sales, collection, regeneration, and reprocessing sectors have joined forces in Kashima City to implement a circular system using chemical recycling. This method chemically decomposes used plastics into raw materials such as oil, gas, and monomers, making them reusable in production.

Starting in the summer of 2025, used plastics collected in Kashima City will be processed by Refineverse and then regenerated at Mitsubishi Chemical’s newly established chemical recycling plant. The recycled plastic will be used by Toyo Seikan Group to manufacture new containers, which will then be used by Kewpie for packaging, sold by Kasumi, and recollected to continue the cycle. This demonstration experiment will adopt the mass balance approach, which involves mixing petroleum-based raw materials with chemically recycled materials and allocating the recycled content proportionally within the final product.

By March 2026, the six organizations plan to compile and publish a “Plastic Container Circulation Evaluation Report” detailing key insights and feedback from the initiative.