Caring for the earth
Reducing the environmental burden caused by plastics
The Calbee Group uses plastic materials for packaging containers to maintain product quality. To address social issues of recent notoriety, such as marine plastic pollution, petroleum resource depletion, and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from plastics made from fossil fuels, the Calbee Group will reduce the amount of plastics it uses as much as possible and switch to more eco-friendly materials, to achieve sustainable growth as a business group and creating a sustainable society.
Main initiatives
Petroleum-based plastic reduction targets
In 1983, Calbee introduced multilayer aluminum-metalized film for product packaging to maintain the quality of food products containing oils and fats. This enables us to offer customers products that do not lose their taste or quality over long periods. Since we introduced this technology, we have made various improvements to packaging materials and extended expiration dates. We have also reduced plastic consumption by making packaging film thinner and packaging containers smaller. We were, however, unable to horizontally recycle the film easily because the structure of the film, which consisted of several materials, made it hard to separate each layer. Based on the milestones incorporated in the Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics published by the Japanese government in May 2019, Calbee set plastic container replacement and reduction goals in FY2020. The Calbee Group will reduce plastic consumption and collaboratively pursue technological development in biomass plastic and chemical recycling.
Plastic packaging replacement and reduction targets
- By 2030, reduce packaging containers made with plastics produced from petroleum by 50% (compared with FY2018).
- By 2050, replace materials used for packaging containers with 100% environmentally friendly materials.
Packaging size
In 2022, we reduced plastic consumption by narrowing the width of the seal area of large potato chip packages.
We will continue to work with equipment manufacturers and film suppliers to pursue further technological development to make packaging containers smaller and film thinner.
Use of biomass plastics
To reduce plastics produced from petroleum, the Calbee Group has started to use biomass PET for some packaging materials used for stand-up pouch products. Since FY2023, we have expanded the use of biomass PET to some of our products, including Kappa Ebisen. We have been gradually replacing printing inks with biomass inks. In 2022, Calbee won the Japan Star Award and the Japan Packaging Institute President's Award in the Japan Packaging Contest 2022 organized by the Japan Packaging Institute in recognition of our initiative to use ECOLUSTER® * for our boxed Jagabee. ECOLUSTER® is a printing method that reduces CO2 emissions associated with raw ink materials and the printing process by roughly 34% compared with conventional printing methods.
- * ECOLUSTER® is a registered trademark of Toppan Inc.
Biomass PET is used for these products.
Jagabee Box: New printing method ECOLUSTER® is used.
Capital participation in R Plus Japan, Ltd.
Calbee acquired an ownership stake in R Plus Japan, Ltd. in February 2021 to strengthen its efforts to recycle used plastics. A large amount of plastic waste, other than PET bottles, is incinerated*1 in Japan. R Plus Japan, Ltd. is working to put into practical application a chemical recycling technology*2 that converts general plastics, including PET bottles, directly back into raw materials (e.g., benzene, toluene, xylene, propylene). This technology, which has fewer processes than conventional chemical recycling technologies that involve petrochemical processing, is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lessen the amount of energy required, and promote efficient recycling of used plastics.
- *1 Includes thermal recovery (use of heat energy) in which heat produced during incineration is recovered and used to generate electricity and supply heat.
- *2 Used resources are recycled after their composition has been changed by chemical reactions, rather than being recycled as they are.
Pilot project for developing a resource recycling scheme
To develop a scheme to recycle plastic resources in the future, Calbee promotes a used plastics recycling initiative lead by R Plus Japan, Ltd. in conjunction with participating companies.
We conducted a pilot project to separate and collect used plastic containers at Michinoeki Minorinosato Togane in Togene City, Chiba Prefecture from November 5th to December 4th, 2022. The purpose of the pilot project is to check the conditions and quantities of plastic containers collected, and to verify whether the recycling technology of R Plus Japan, Ltd. can be applied to the plastics from the containers. We will continue to separate and collect used plastics and repeat the verification process in order to develop a resource recycling scheme.
*This project has finished.