February 28, 2022
Sumitomo Realty & Development Co., Ltd.

Sumitomo Realty × Suntory Group

Facilitating the Sustainable Recycling of PET Bottles inOffice Buildings
Recycling and awareness-raising activities start on Tuesday, March 1
Sumitomo Realty & Development Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo; President: Kojun Nishima;
hereinafter “Sumitomo Realty”) and Suntory Beverage & Food Limited (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo;
President & CEO: Kazuhiro Saito; hereinafter “Suntory”), a member of the Suntory Group, are pleased toannounce the March 1 launch of a collaborative PET bottle recycling initiative at leased office buildings by
Sumitomo Realty.
This initiative involves the establishment and ongoing
operation of a “bottle-to-bottle” horizontal recycling
system in which used PET bottles collected at threeleased office buildings in Shinjuku by Sumitomo Realty
are recycled into PET bottle containers for Suntory
beverage products through advanced recycling
processes.
In addition, the Sumitomo Realty Group will further
promote separation of resources by making the resource
circulation more “visible” through efforts such as theimplementation of a PET bottle recycling campaign at“Rieven House,” convenience stores within officebuildings operated by Sumitomo Realty. By way of theseendeavors, Sumitomo Realty is contributing to therealization of sound material-cycle society through close
collaboration with both tenant companies and beverage
manufacturers.

Used PET bottles

PET bottle recycling campaign

Recycling

Bottle to bottle
Drinking/consumption*”Bottles are resources! Towards a Sustainable Bottle”

New PET bottles

1. Societal Context

Horizontal “Bottle-to-Bottle” Recycling

While plastics provide people with high levels ofconvenience, occasional failure to properly dispose
these plastics is causing marine pollution and thisrequires urgent countermeasures.
In response, the Japanese government has
passed the “Plastic Resource Circulation Act,”
which is scheduled to take effect in April 2022, andenvironments that will facilitate a transition toward a
circular economy are currently being developed.
Among all plastics, PET bottles are alreadyrecycled at a high rate, and are expected to be aleading material for recycling plastic resources as awhole.

1. Separate PET bottles and put them in recycling bin

4. Sell beverages in recycled PET bottles

2. Crush into small pieces and wash clean

3. Form new bottles using recycled raw materials

PET bottle

PreformPellets

2. Background of This Collaborative Initiative
Ever since Suntory became the first company in the Japanese soft drink industry to introduce PET bottles
made from 100% recycled materials in 2012*¹, they have been actively promoting practical use of “bottleto-bottle” horizontal recycling*² through efforts including the development of advanced recycling
technologies*³. Under the Suntory Group Plastic Policy formulated in 2019, they aim to make all of their
PET bottles 100% sustainable by 2030*⁴.
Sumitomo Realty, in the meanwhile, has been actively conducting environmental initiatives including
3R*⁵ activities, as a company that maintains more than 230 office buildings, from which over 1,000 tons of
PET bottles (equivalent to approximately 50 million 500ml PET bottles*⁶) are collected from thesebuildings annually.
As efforts to promote recycling throughout Japan is increasing, Sumitomo Realty and Suntory havedecided to join their efforts in further promoting the realization of sound material-cycle society.
The collaborative initiative will be initially launched at three large office buildings in Shinjuku and will
later be gradually expanded. Used PET bottles generated from these three buildings weigh approximately
140 tons, which is equivalent to about 7% of the total amount collected from large office buildings
throughout Shinjuku*⁷.
*1. Through mechanical recycling*2. Recycling used products into the same type of product*3. F-to-P direct recycling technology jointly developed by four
companies including Kyoei Sangyo Co., Ltd.

*4. Containing only recycled materials and plant-derived materials (not containing
any materials derived from fossil resources)*5. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle*6. Assuming each bottle weighs 20g*7. From an official data file concerning large buildings for business use in Shinjuku, Tokyo; in accordance with recycling plans, includes all PET bottles
collected from buildings with floor areas dedicated to business use that meet or exceed 3,000 ㎡ in total.

Office buildings subject to this project Shinjuku Sumitomo Building Sumitomo Fudosan
Shinjuku Grand Tower

 Sumitomo Fudosan
Shinjuku Garden Tower

3. Awareness-raising activities
PET bottles cannot be recycled into new PET bottles if they contain impurities such as glass fragments orunfinished beverage portions, so “clean separation” is essential to horizontal recycling. Until now, due to alack of individual awareness among companies discarding PET bottles in office buildings occupied by alarge number of companies, the uniform collection of PET bottles in good condition, which also requires theseparation of caps and labels, has been considered to be difficult.
In order to resolve this issue and promote resource recycling in leased office buildings throughcooperation with tenant companies, on March 1, Sumitomo Realty and Suntory will launch two awarenessraising initiatives aimed at making resource recycling more accessible to tenants. Furthermore, we areconsidering expanding these initiatives at other Sumitomo Realty’s office buildings in the future.
Awareness-raising initiatives at three office buildings(1) Distribute awareness-raising posters for all tenants to display.
(2)“PET Bottle Recycling Campaign” at Rieven House (a convenience store within the buildings) underwhich customers who properly sort their bottles will receive a free beverage product packaged in a PET
bottle made from 100% recycled materials.

Awareness-raising posters

About Rieven House
Rieven House is a convenience store
that specializes for the needs in officebuildings operated by Izumi
Restaurant Co., Ltd. of the Sumitomo
Realty Group. There are currently 23
shops mainly within large officebuildings maintained by Sumitomo
Realty.

PET bottle recycling campaign