Historic Consideration on Countermeasures against the Littering of Plastic Bottles

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increase in the reports of scattering of plastic bottles in many areas in Japan. When “pollution of empty cans” was identified as a problem in the 1970s through the 1990s, local governments introduced the local deposit/refund system to counteract littering. However, since this system was not adopted throughout the country, its efficacy in solving the problem was limited. In 1997, the Japanese government then partial implemented the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law to reduce waste and promote recycling. However, public perception regarding the law contends that it helped to promote recycling but did not solve the problem of littering. The law did not offer any incentive to producers, consumers, or local governments to promote collection, so it was fundamentally limited as a policy advocating waste reduction. This paper investigates a key aspect related to solving the problem of littering of plastic bottles.