The biennial showcase of Japanese packaging prowess kicked off at Tokyo Big Sight yesterday, with 726 exhibitors across 2315 booths addressing the theme 'Tokyo Pack Inspires the Packaging World'. PKN was there.
The three-day expo will run until 25 October, and offers a packed line-up of speaker events, special pavilions, award showcases – including the Dow Packaging Innovation awards to be presented on Day 2 – and of course, two huge halls of packaging materials and machinery innovation.
Australia was well represented at the opening ceremony and in the keynote addresses by PKN editor & publisher Lindy Hughson and AIP executive director Nerida Kelton, although both were wearing their global hats – Hughson as president of the International Packaging Press Organisation, and Kelton as World Packaging Organisation (WPO) vice president Sustainability & Save Food. Both presentations attracted a full house of 300 delegates, with Hughson covering global trends and technology driving sustainable change as viewed from a journalist’s perspective, while Kelton – who delivered her insightful talk in fluent Japanese – gave an update on global packaging design regulations.
Tokyo Pack is an important event for the Japanese packaging industry, viewed as an opportunity to show the world its expertise, and to further opportunities for global collaboration.
This year’s event has increased in size significantly over the 2022 edition, which had 406 exhibitors.
According to Toshio Arita, honorary IPPO member and well-known industry figure in Japan, the increase in the number and scale of exhibitors is remarkable, and evidence that the Japanese packaging industry has overcome the impact of Covid-19 and taken a big step towards the next stage of growth.
The Japanese government implemented the Plastic Resource Circulation strategy in 2019, the basic principles of which are the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) + Renewable, and much of the packaging development on display is in line with these.
Arita said, “The strategy is set to address a wide range of issues, including marine plastic waste, climate change, and strengthened waste import regulations in various countries.”
Arita went on to explain the government has also stipulated six milestones:
1. By 2030, reduce cumulative emmissions of single-use plastic packaging by 25 per cent.
2. By 2025, design plastic packaging and products so that they can be reused and recycled.
3. By 2030, reuse and recycle 60 per cent of plastic packaging.
4. By 2035, achieve 100 per cent effective use of all used plastics through reuse, recycling and thermal recovery.
5. By 2030, double the amount of recycled plastic.
6. By 2030, introduce approximately two million tons of biomass plastic.
The statistics on collection and recycling rates of packaging by material in Japan, as supplied by Arita, make for interesting reading.
Paper packaging (excluding corrugated box and beverage cartons) saw a collection rate of 23.6% in 2021.
“Both the collection volume and collection rate have decreased, with most being disposed at home as ‘burnable waste’,” Arita noted, adding that the collection rate of used beverage cartons (without aluminium foil) has been declining continuously, falling from 32.3% in 2018 to 29.5% in 2021.
Greater success has been clocked for PET, with recycling rates of 86% in 2021 and 86.9% in 2022. Another success story is aluminium beverage cans, with a recycling rate of 97.5% in 2023, and a can-to-can rate (proportion of recycled aluminium cans that were reused as can material) of 73.8%.
Plastic waste (soft plastic) in 2022 had an effective utilisation rate of 87%, of which 22% was material recycling, 3% was chemical recycling (reused as chemical raw materials in blast furnaces and coke ovens), and 5100kt (63%) was energy recovery.
CHALLENGES
Commenting on the challenges Japan faces in realising a circular economy, Arita said: “The deciding factor in the field of barrier flexible packaging for food packaging is Japan’s unique barrier packaging materials (EVOH, PVA, SiOx/ALOx deposition, coating materials).
“Despite the availability of such excellent materials and the high level of processing technology in Japan, the implementation of mono-material and paper packaging is lagging behind, especially Central Europe, where these barrier materials have already contributed to the substitution of Al-foil for mono-material.”
There are several reasons for this, according to Arita, principal of which is the lack of legislated, mandatory regulation for recyclable packaging design.
“Also, although individual companies have a high level of technology, there is no industry collaboration such as CEFLEX and 4evergreen in the EU. Therefore, there is no consensus on Japan’s unique Design for Recycling guidelines,” he added. On top of this, there is no widespread discussion on the legalisation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) as seen in Europe, the US and lately, in Australia.
Another challenge Arita identified is that ‘environmentally friendly’ is perceived as a trade-off between ‘functionality of packaging’ and ‘food waste reduction’. And pursuing environmentally friendly, recycle-ready, paper-based or biopolymer packaging is hindered by the barrier of rising costs which are difficult to pass on in product pricing.
“Manufacturers intentions and efforts are not leading to changes in consumer behaviour,” Arita said, expressing concern that if things continue as they are, Japan will fall behind Europe and the United States, who are pulling ahead in terms of the scale of realising circularity for packaging.
BRIGHT FUTURE?
Despite these challenges, Arita believes Japan’s packaging industry has a bright future. As the Japanese economy looks set to recover, Arita says, “it is time for the packaging industry to shift its strategy based on innovation”, and in that sense Tokyo Pack 2024 will be an important barometer of the future.
In Japan’s favour is its already established recycling platform, in addition to world-leading packaging materials and technologies; a relatively successful “responsibility system” that has been cultivated by packaging users, consumers, and local governments based on the Container Recycling Law. It also boasts an extremely high recovery rate of aluminium cans and PET bottles, notably achieved without introducing a depos system, and has achieved a significant reduction in plastic through refill pouches.
All this bodes well for a strong recovery and reboot on the path to achieving a circular economy.
PKN will be publishing a report on the Tokyo Pack exhibition in the November-December print edition.
