Have you read our previous story about how clear PET can be reborn as a container?
For six years, AROMATICA has been collecting its own clear PET containers through the Join the Circle campaign. This has been an effort to connect cleanly collected clear PET directly to the recycling material process, before it becomes mixed with other materials or contaminated during the sorting stage.
Through this journey, we confirmed the possibility that cosmetic clear PET, when collected cleanly and separately, can also be recycled into high-quality material suitable for containers again.
An Unexpected Turning Point in the Circle
However, an unexpected turning point has arrived for the circular system of Join the Circle.
Starting in 2026, the food and beverage industry in Korea will be required to use 10% recycled raw materials if they use more than 5,000 tons of PET bottles per year. As a result, the recycled PET market has begun to shift significantly. With food and beverage companies now required to secure recycled materials, both demand and production lines for recycled PET are rapidly becoming concentrated around food and beverage containers.
From 2030, this requirement is expected to expand to companies that use more than 1,000 tons of PET bottles per year, while the required ratio of recycled material use will increase to 30%.
Of course, from the perspective of the overall resource circulation system, this is a very welcome change. More companies using recycled materials means greater demand for recycled resources.
However, as a result, recycling lines for non-food PET are gradually decreasing.
In general, recycling material companies operate separate lines for food-grade and non-food-grade materials. In principle, only food and beverage containers can be processed through food-grade lines. Non-food PET, such as cosmetic containers, must go through non-food-grade lines.
And this is where the challenge begins. No matter how cleanly high-quality clear PET cosmetic containers are collected, under the current system and market structure, the path for them to return as cosmetic containers is practically blocked.
So, Is the Circle for Cosmetic Containers Closed?
AROMATICA decided not to stop in front of this question.
Since last March, AROMATICA has been working with SuperBin, a recycling material company that has supplied part of the recycled raw material used for our PET containers. Together, we began discussing how to move forward.
SuperBin is more than just a business partner. It is a partner that has been seriously exploring how clear PET can circulate in a more valuable way. AROMATICA has also been working to create the possibility for cosmetic containers to return as containers again, rather than being used once and discarded.
Based on this shared awareness, the two companies continue to build a strong partnership around the same challenge.
SuperBin
A resource circulation company that collects clear PET bottles through its AI-powered recycling robot, Nephron, and rewards citizen participation in the recycling process.
Under the current system and market structure, it is difficult to directly feed clear PET cosmetic containers into a recycled material line for containers. But that does not mean we can allow cleanly collected resources to flow back into a lower-quality recycling stream.
Absolutely not.
That is why AROMATICA and SuperBin are reviewing technical and institutional challenges to find a practical path for cosmetic containers collected through Join the Circle to return as cosmetic containers again.
Even within the current limitations, where these materials cannot immediately be processed through existing lines, we are preparing for a future where the resource circulation loop for non-food PET can open again. Behind the scenes, we continue to explore multiple ways to reconnect this blocked circle.
“Under the current system and market structure, it is difficult for cosmetic containers to be reborn as cosmetic containers again. However, if campaigns like AROMATICA’s Join the Circle continue and expand, I believe they will eventually bear fruit.”
- Manager Insoo Jung, SuperBin -
Expanding the Way We See Clear PET
If we look at Japan, which is close to Korea, even containers for dark-colored food products such as soy sauce are being converted to clear PET, actively expanding the scope of recycling.
In Korea, however, the accepted scope of clear PET is still largely centered around beverage bottles. This can make recycling standards feel somewhat restrictive.
Ultimately, this is a challenge that can only be solved when social awareness and institutional perspectives around clear PET become broader.
If awareness of the value of cleanly collected clear PET, including cosmetic containers, continues to build over time, the range of resources that can be used as clear PET in the future may become much wider.
Keeping the Circle Alive
Until the day cosmetic containers can return as cosmetic containers again, AROMATICA will continue to keep pushing on this blocked circle instead of giving up.
Just as the resource circulation market has begun to move through the expanded mandatory use of recycled materials in food and beverage containers, we hope that one day recycled material use will also be applied more actively to cosmetic containers. And with that shift, demand and recycling systems for non-food PET can grow together.
Even if these efforts do not lead to visible results right away, we believe that if we can keep this circle strong, a path may eventually open for cosmetic containers to return as cosmetic containers once again.
Please continue to follow AROMATICA’s ongoing efforts to find the next possibility.