A Health and Welfare Ministry panel released a report Wednesday calling for raising the recycling rate of plastic drink bottles to 50 percent by fiscal 2004, ministry officials said.

It also proposed that makers of beverages and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles be required to accept used PET bottles as long as they can be recycled, and that commercially viable technology for making new bottles out of used ones be developed by fiscal 2003.

In fiscal 1999, 23 percent of used PET bottles were collected, according to the government.

The panel said recycling costs should be clearly indicated to consumers buying PET-bottled drinks as a way of increasing awareness about such expenses.

The current PET recycling system, which began in fiscal 1997 and is based on the 1995 Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, has come under fire for numerous reasons.

One is the refusal of businesses to accept bottles collected by local governments for recycling. Another is the growth in the number of discarded PET bottles as a result of their increased use.

The 1995 law, which obliges consumers to separate their garbage while municipalities sort it further, aims to reduce the amount of containers and packaging in trash, which make up 20 percent to 30 percent of household waste in weight and 50 percent to 60 percent in volume.

In April, paper and plastic packages became part of separate garbage collections. The panel also proposed that recycling targets be set for those products as well.