• Waste management in Japan
• Circular economy in Japan
• Waste management in Asia
• Disaster waste management

Small Home Appliance Recycling Law starts

In Japan, the Act on Promotion of Recycling of Small Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (abbreviated as "the Small Home Appliance Recycling Law") came into force in April 2013. The law, which was passed and enacted by the National Diet in August 2012, aims at promoting the recycling of small home appliances to achieve their proper disposal and effective use of resources.

Prior to that, municipalities typically collected the end-of-life small home appliances as non-combustible or bulky waste. At that time, most metals, with some exceptions such as iron and aluminium, were landfilled in the end without being recycled, and the failure of recycling them was considered "mottainai," or waste of resources. Such a situation prompted the discussion on the development of the new law. In addition, the following factors also stimulated the discussion: surging price of these resources, the rising risks of supply disruptions due to uneven distribution of supplier countries and instability of global politics, the shortage of final disposal sites, and the needs for proper management of hazardous substances such as lead and arsenic.

Under this law, a Cabinet Order specifies target small home appliances in 28 categories. These items include mobile phones, personal computers, digital cameras, video cameras, microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners and rice cookers. The target items also include much larger ones such as electric massagers and treadmills which we may not call "small appliances." Yet, many other target electrical and electronic devices are small or medium-sized compared to the items that are covered by the Act on Recycling of Specified Kinds of Home Appliances ("the Home Appliance Recycling Law"), such as TVs and air conditioners. From the listed target items, each municipality selects specific items to collect and recycle depending on their respective situations. Therefore, actual target items vary among municipalities.

The new law stipulates that the national government, consumers, municipalities and authorized recycling business operators ("authorized business") and retailers have their respective responsibilities for promoting the recycling. The national government is responsible for securing funds and compiling relevant information to support municipalities. Consumers are responsible for separately discharging the applicable items when they dispose of waste. Municipalities are responsible for separating and collecting these items as well as delivering them to the authorized businesses for recycling. The authorized businesses have responsibilities of collecting the items from the municipalities. Retailers are obliged to cooperate with the municipalities in ensuring that consumers separately and properly discharge the applicable items. If the retailers become authorized businesses, they can also collect these items. The national government has set a target of achieving 20% collection rate, for the country as a whole, of the total weight of the end-of-life small home appliances.

Expected changes in the movement of end-of-life small appliances

Even after the enforcement of the law, no change is expected for the movement of end-of-life small home appliances from consumers to municipalities, as the latter still collects the waste in most cases. Under the new law, however, each municipality decides its own collection methods, such as Collection Box Method (installation of specific collection boxes at public facilities), Station Collection Method (designation of a specific section at the existing collection points/stations), and Pickup Collection Method (separation of applicable items by municipal personnel from the waste that consumers have disposed of as per the previous classification). The first two methods expect consumers to separately and properly discharge end-of-life appliances according to the new classification. The third method will not place additional burden on consumers, but on municipal personnel who are engaged in the separation of applicable items at recycling stations or other collection points.

Once collected by municipalities, the end-of-life small home appliances are delivered to the authorized business operators for intermediate processing and metal recovery. On June 28, 2013, the national government authorized 14 business operators so that their collection areas will cover 41 prefectures. On the same day, the results of a questionnaire survey targeting municipalities was published. It showed that 1,305 municipalities (covering about 90% of Japan's total population) already participated or planned to participate in this resource recovery program. The municipalities have sequentially begun to implement the program as soon as they establish the collection systems.

In principle, the law requires municipalities to deliver the end-of-life small home appliances to the authorized business operators. In addition, the law allows the delivery of such appliances to any unauthorized operators on condition that they can provide recycling services that are equal to or better than the ones of authorized operators. In that case however, the municipalities are requested to ensure that it will not lead to improper treatment/disposal of the items, whether in Japan or overseas.

Before the start of the Small Home Appliance Recycling Law in Japan, many had called for the prevention of improper exports of these appliances, in addition to the development of the domestic program. They pointed out that the end-of-life medium-sized home appliances such as vacuum cleaners and rice cookers were often mixed in and exported with scrap metals, and that it could pose problems from the viewpoint of controlling hazardous substances, preventing an outflow of resources, and reducing fire risks (see the January 24, 2011 issue: Three Problems Concerning the Scrap Collection Business and the Export of Scrap-mixed Metals ("Zappin") [in Japanese]). Therefore, the new law necessitates effective measures to improve the situation of improper domestic deals of end-of-life home appliances including the ones for their reuse, as well as to prevent their improper exports.

Difference between the new law and other recycling-related laws

Japan has established many recycling-related laws and programs, which may be confusing. How then, does the new recycling law for small home appliances differ from other similar ones?

The Home Appliance Recycling Law (enforced in 2001) covers four items, namely TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators/freezers and washing machines/dryers, and obliges manufacturers to recycle these items, and consumers to bear the cost. In contrast, the new law covers a wide range of electric/electronic appliances excluding the four items listed above. It allows each municipality to decide whether to participate in the program, and which items to collect. That is why the new law is sometimes described as the program to encourage voluntary participation, compared with the above-mentioned Home Appliance Recycling Law that imposes obligations on the parties concerned.

Under the new law, the only responsibility of manufacturers is to make efforts to reduce the cost of small home appliance recycling by improving product designs and utilizing recycled materials in their production. They have no obligation of recycling their products, whether physically or financially. In that sense, this law is not in line with the prevailing trend of "extended producer responsibility" for a wide variety of products (see the July 2012 issue: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Recycling [in Japanese]).

However, the recycling of personal computers and mobile phones requires special attention as they are covered by several laws and programs. For the former, manufacturers already have the obligation of voluntary collection and recycling under the Law for Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources (enforced in 2001). For the latter, "Mobile Recycle Network," a voluntary initiative by manufacturers and telecommunications carriers, has already been implemented. Since the new law also covers these two items, consumers will have more disposal options to choose from, and it will be necessary to prevent their confusion. This situation contrasts with Europe and South Korea where the recycling of electric/electronic appliances is regulated by a single law.

Recoverable metals

What types of metals can the authorized business operators recover? For example, a mobile phone mainly contains iron and copper. It also contains precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum as well as minor metals such as nickel, chromium, tungsten and indium. In actual work, the operators select or combine certain processes according to the types of metals to recover. For instance, if they use pyro-metallurgical process, copper and precious metals can be recovered. However, with the same process, tungsten, indium and other minor metals cannot be recovered as they are distributed into slag (see the June 8, 2009 issue: Urban Mines and Recycling of Metal Resources [in Japanese]).

Before the start of the new law, whether such minor metals should be recovered was an issue to be decided in the future, although its importance was recognized. It was because their recovery technologies had not been established, and the recovery of many such metals was not economically viable.

That was why the new law does not cover minor metals. Yet, the program should be refined not only from the short-term benefit perspective but also from a long-term perspective because the small home appliances contain a much wider variety of metals (base metals, precious metals and minor metals). More types of metals can be recovered physically and economically through proper separation at the pre-processing stage as well as technology development.

Future tasks

In the future, the recycling program's implementation status will be evaluated based on the information provided by the national government. In order for this program to take off, it is necessary not to overburden municipalities, and to gain cooperation from consumers. If it proves difficult, further involvement of the national government and manufacturers may be required.

In evaluating the effect of the program, we should consider the reduction in the amount of hazardous metals in these appliances entering into the final disposal sites and municipal treatment facilities. Proper management of such metals by the authorized business operators at their dedicated facilities should also be assessed. In other words, the program needs to be evaluated based not only on the recovery of metals having high resource values but also on the degree of hazardous substance management.

Finally, the program needs to be simple and should not overburden consumers considering that their cooperation is vital from the initial disposal stage. It is also preferable to clarify the legal status of the informal collection business operators of end-of-life items. In order to gain consumers' understanding and cooperation, it is important to review and improve the program in a flexible manner in addition to disseminating appropriate disposal methods and disclosing the program's implementation status.