2016 年 12 巻 4 号 p. 232-238
The background of the Packaging Recycling Law and the process of discussion in the establishment and the revisions of this law were reviewed. The Packaging Recycling Law of 1995 is the first law based on the Extended Producer Responsibility（EPR）established in Japan that lead to other EPR based recycling laws for other products such as home electric and electronic appliances or cars. Introduction of the EPR principle in waste management policies in Japan was a fundamental change of the legal framework of the ‘general waste’ management, in which the total or a part of the responsibility for waste collection, processing and recycling was transferred from local municipalities to producers. The underlying causes of the establishment of the Packaging Recycling Law in Japan were（1）declining landfill capacity,（2）increasing difficulty of securing new landfill sites,（3）increasing waste generation,（4）increasing waste management costs, and（5）concerns for resource depletion. Because all of these causes stem from economic growth, thus are structural causes, structural measures were required. The Packaging Recycling Law contributed to a substantial increase of recycling of general waste, however, research on the costs of sorted collection and stock by municipalities revealed two problems, one is the costs borne by municipalities were 250 billion yen which is more than 6 times as much as producers payment, which raised a question of equity, the second is the unit cost of sorted collection varies widely with municipalities, which raised questions of efficiency. In addition, preference for material recycling over chemical recycling of plastic packaging imposed substantial costs for producers, which raised the question if the additional cost is acceptable for the benefit of non-economic effects such as environmental pollutions. To answer this question, the Japan Container and Packaging Recycling Association and government organized three LCA studies, all of which concluded that there is no difference between material recycling and chemical recycling for environmental performance. However, the preference for material recycling has been kept to secure diversity of recycling technologies and instead of abolition of the preference, integrated evaluation was introduced in the amendments of 2006 to improve the quality of material recycling. A new system to donate a half of the reduced costs of recycling with reference to BAU to municipalities from producers based on performance of municipalities in the amendments of 2006. Although payment from producers to municipalities were institutionalized, this amendment does not mean the reallocation of responsibility between municipalities and producers. The Packaging Recycling Law initiated the structural change of ‘general waste’ management in Japan in 1995 when it was established. Since then, three big questions have been raised on the equity of responsibility allocation, on the efficiency of waste management by municipalities, and the rationality of preference for material recycling of plastic packaging. So far we have not reached consensus on any of these questions due to the clear conflict of interests and the lack of opportunity for in depth discussion. It would be preferable to start discussions at a higher level than individual recycling laws.
