AEON & Loop collaboration brings circular shopping to Japan

AEON Co., Ltd. is one of Japan’s top retailers. It announced its collaboration with ‘Loop’, a unique consumption cycle produced by TerraCycle Inc., a company based in New Jersey. TerraCycle provides inventive recycling platforms globally, and AEON will be the first retailer in Japan to participate in Loop.

Loop is an inventive system to provide a sustainable consumption cycle. It is a circular shopping platform to achieve zero-waste by remodeling the consumption chain. Items that are consumed in our everyday lives will have single-use packages converted to multi-use, durable or fully recyclable packages.

Using Loop is simple and easy; consumers purchase through Loop, where leading brands’ products are redesigned to be zero-waste. Then, Loop delivers the products in a Loop Tote, a reusable bag, again eliminating waste. After use, consumers just place the empty packages back into the Loop Tote and schedule for a pickup. Loop will collect the Tote and cleans the packages hygienically for refill and reuse. Users can choose “auto-refill when returned” service to save labor, if they wish to continue using the same product. There is a wide variety of products available at Loop, ranging from food jars like ice-cream to hygiene products from leading brands. This new shopping platform is designed to achieve a sustainable and responsible consumption cycle, and has already been launched in the US, UK, Canada and Germany. And now, it will start its unique service in Japan.

Recycling is a massive industry and a major concern because Japan discards 9,150,000 tons of plastic waste annually. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is promoting “3R” ―reducing, reusing and recycling―to reduce waste and achieve a sustainable consumption cycle. Recyclable material such as PET bottles and food packages are collected to be transformed into various products like plastic containers, clothing and stationery.

Although the rate of recycling PET bottles achieved 86% (as of fiscal 2018), the rate of reusing is much lower, because there is difficulty in cleaning the bottles thoroughly for safe use after being used as containers of hazardous substances. And these bottles are mixed with other harmless bottles during the process of collecting the recyclables. Therefore, many are crushed, cleaned and then re-polymerized to make new polymers. However, reproducing new materials from recycled plastic consumes more energy and has negative effect on the environment compared to reusing. Loop is overcoming this concern by reusing the same bottle for the same product, hence there will be no danger of reusing unsafe bottles and keeps the process more simple at the same time.

Nowadays, many consumers have come to realize the harm of excessive packaging and the importance of eliminating waste, thus trying to tackle reducing plastic and other recyclable waste. The new shopping platform AEON will provide for shoppers in Japan will be a convenient, safe and eco-friendly way of consuming products, opening the door to a new world for sustainable lifestyle.