TOKYO -- Procter & Gamble will launch its first "beach-plastic" products in Japan as early as next week, company's Japan unit announced Wednesday morning.
The consumer goods giant has already marketed similar products in the United States and Europe, but it plans for its Japan operation to produce and sell one of the largest volumes for a single country. Amid growing concerns over ocean plastic, P&G's competitors in Japan are also likely to make further progress on their measures to deal with the problem.
Procter & Gamble Japan K.K., a subsidiary of the U.S.-based global company, announced a sales plan for new products on Wednesday morning. A new kitchen detergent is to be named Joy Ocean Plastic, with bottles made partly from reclaimed beach plastic waste collected in Japan.
The Japan subsidiary plans to sell a total of 550,000 units. "We believe that used plastic is actually a very valuable resource and that it should be not discarded but used again," Stanislav Vecera, president of P&G Japan, said at a press conference held at its Tokyo office in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, on Wednesday.
According to the announcement, P&G Japan conducts the entire process of manufacturing the new bottles in Japan, cooperating with the Japanese arm of global recycling company TerraCycle. Six tons of beach plastic waste were collected by volunteers on Tsushima Island, Nagasaki Prefecture, and recycled into raw materials for bottles with the help of the recycling company.
The materials were turned into bottles by P&G. About 25 percent of each bottle is made from plastic waste collected in Japan.
Creating the new bottles costs more than ordinary ones, said Xiaofang Zhong, brand leader of P&G Japan. However, the company decided not to reflect the higher cost in its product price.
P&G has been selling similar products since 2017, including Head & Shoulders shampoo and Fairy kitchen detergent, in Britain, Germany and other European countries. It has also sold Herbal Essences hair care products in North America. They have produced more than 3 million bottles for the Fairy detergent so far.
Pressure increased
Consumer goods firms around the world are paying more and more attention to utilizing ocean plastic, including beach waste. For instance, Adidas AG plans to sell a total of 11 million pairs of shoes containing recycled plastic waste in 2019 alone.
American Express Co. announced in September a redesign of one of its credit cards -- Green Cards – that would be made with plastic waste.
These moves are also prompted by increasing pressure from investors who have focused more on so-called ESG criteria, or environmental, social and governance, when they make investment decisions. Even in Japan, the Government Pension Investment Fund began investing with ESG in 2017. A European pension fund withdrew from investments in coal-related companies because they emitted a large amount of greenhouse gases.
"Recycled products with ocean plastic waste would effectively attract customers in the wake of this issue in Japan," said Kazutaka Kuroda, a sustainable finance specialist at the Japan Research Institute. "Similar practices are expected to be implemented [by other companies], although the speed of implementation will vary among companies, based on how fast they can change their supply chains."
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