Abstract
Since 2006, the Fukushima University Cooperative has been using recyclable lunch boxes for take-out food. The boxes have a removable film on the inside, and clean plastics, after removing the film, can be used to make new products. In order to use the plastics for manufacturing new containers, used containers without the films have to be collected and sent to the manufacturer. The Fukushima University Cooperative has been implementing several measures to collect the used containers without films since 2009, in cooperation with the activity and research of the author’s seminar. The measures include setting up and increasing collection boxes, introducing deposit-refund systems, enlarging the target products and containers for deposit-refund systems, setting up temporary events for collection such as lotteries with used containers, and advertisement or provision of information on collecting used containers. This study summarizes the aforementioned measures and analyzes the effect of each measure on the collection rate empirically. The results suggest that deposit-refund systems are effective in increasing the collection rate and they become more effective by setting up collection boxes and collection events.
