Shiseido, Sekisui Chemical and Sumitomo Chemical are set to begin a joint initiative to establish a circular economy for plastic cosmetics containers.

The initiative will see used cosmetics plastic containers collected, converted to resources and materials without sorting, and recycled back into plastic cosmetics containers. To solve the issue of recycling varying plastics into plastic resources, the group will work together to build a new system to collect used plastic cosmetics containers and recycle them back into new cosmetics containers, leveraging their respective expertise.

According to a press release, Shiseido will introduce a new scheme to collect plastic cosmetics containers through retail stores and use recycled polyolefin for its cosmetics containers.

Sekisui Chemicals will utilize the BR ethanol technology to convert used plastics into ethanol, a raw material for plastics, by turning combustible waste into gas without sorting, and converting the gas into ethanol using microbes.

Meanwhile, Sumitomo Chemical will manufacture ethylene from that ethanol by using a technology for converting renewable ethanol into ethylene, and produce, from the ethylene, polyolefin products with quality equivalent to conventional polyolefin using fossil resources.

The initiative is the latest move from Shiseido to establish a circular economy, with the three companies advancing this cross-sectoral alliance, while also calling on related industries and companies to join in the effort.