In recent years, various international efforts have been made with regard to resource efficiency and marine plastics issues. There is great potential for Japan and Japan’s recycling industry to contribute in terms of software and hardware. This article summarizes recent international trends related to these issues. This article introduces examples that Japan has been working on at the local level (South-East Asia, Africa, etc.) and strategies for overseas expansion in the field of waste management and recycling.

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Although it is commonly known on the global market that, “Japan’s waste management and recycling industries have developed high-level technologies for environmental goods,” this meritorious statement is often followed up by, “but its international expansion, which requires a total management business that includes operation and management, has been delayed”. This paper analyzes the international competitiveness of Japan’s waste management and recycling industries using available data from the perspective of the environmental goods and services trade. As a result, in terms of the number of patents by country, China has gradually increased in all technologies. In the international application as of 2018, Japanese companies have gained a high share in solid waste disposal and waste incinerators. With regard to trade for related environmental goods, China has gained export competitiveness in both incinerator and crushing machines, causing Japan to lose its export competitiveness relatively. It was found that among all foreign companies that own waste treatment and disposal service businesses in Asian countries, Japan was seen to hold the largest investment.

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This paper summarizes projects of private investment-based technology transfer of Japanese waste management and recycling industries into developing Asian countries, taking into account business conditions such as applicability to the local environment, sustainable management and operation, and long-term feasibility of the system. Any technology transfer project should provide concrete solutions to problems and address requirements for recipient countries, while at the same time paying attention to the trends of competing donor countries or local companies. Recycling of construction and demolition waste, waste-to-energy schemes, comprehensive waste management systems, and hazardous waste treatment and recycling are regarded as the prospective fields for project implementation based on favorable acceptance by recipients and the comparatively high advantage held by Japanese industry in terms of technological and geographical background. Past experience showing stable operations, successful management of operational systems, and its demonstration of proficient risk evaluation are considered to be the strengths of Japanese-origin technology and management systems. By contrast, these points are also directly linked to low-cost competitiveness and prolonged decision making which are seen as the significant weaknesses of Japanese industries, when compared to competing countries. Of course, a minimum of effort toward enforcement of cost competitiveness is essential, but more important is the positive and aggressive emphasis of strength of Japan’s overall waste management and recycling industry. In other words, the Japanese waste management and recycling industry needs to be re-branded to represent current values as a practical contributor to the development of society.

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With rapid urbanization and economic growth comes population growth and increasing amounts of waste generation, especially in big cities and industrial zones in Vietnam. Currently, there is no appropriate recycling or resource recover systems in place, not only for domestic waste but also for construction and demolition waste (CDW). In fact, most CDW is dumped at designated areas without any measures set to protect the environment. Based on this background situation and a request for technical cooperation from JICA, the Vietnamese government, Saitama University of Japan, and the National University of Civil Engineering (NUCE) in Vietnam are presently implementing an international collaborative project to address proper management and recycling of CDW under the JST-JICA Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) scheme. This article describes the current condition of CDW management in Vietnam, and along with introducing the activities of SATREPS, it also summarizes the challenges and future issues related to the promotion of CDW recycling in Vietnam.

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