Abstract: Plastics played an important role in the development of human industry and peoples livelihood in the 20th century, but now plastic waste is increasingly harmful to human society and the global environment. As a big country producing and discharging plastic waste in the world, Japan has gone through the development road of mass production and consumption. After longterm exploration of the recycling of plastic resources, Japan has achieved a high recycling rate of plastic waste. However, there are many structural problems in recycling plastic resources in Japan. At the G7 Summit in 2018, Japan took a negative attitude and refused to sign the Ocean Plastics Charter, which was criticized by all parties. Since then, Japan has pushed ahead with the construction of a recyclingoriented social system since 1990s, practical environmental diplomacy, and Chinas Ban on imports of “foreign garbage”. Instead, it formulated the “Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics” in 2019, and listed marine plastics waste and microplastics as an important topic for the G20 summit. The situation of plastic waste recycling in Japan, the reasons for policy change and the strategic content formulated deserve further analysis and discussion.

Key words: plastic waste, Resource Circulation Strategy for Plastics, marine plastics, microplastics, foreign garbage