International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

the fee, the average lifespan of the television increased from 11.8 years to 12.5 years
from 1997 to 2003. 433
In order to promote good design in order to reduce the recycling fees required, the
fees do not have to be uniform from company to company. However in reality,
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd was the first to set fees, and the majority of
companies have followed suit by setting their fees at the same level. In addition, most
leading manufacturers of electric appliances have subsequently set up new recycling
plants via alliances to process WEEE – as of 2002 there were 16 new recycling plants
for this purpose. 433 Business consumers can either bring their WEEE to retailers and
pay a fee, or treat WEEE as industrial waste at their own expense. 434 In rural areas,
some municipalities still take care of WEEE on behalf of their householders, charging
them for either taking the WEEE directly to a pre-treatment company, or returning
them to aggregation points along with payment of the necessary fees.
It is difficult to compare the Japanese and European systems, given that only four
categories of WEEE are included in Japan, that the term ‘recycling rate’ in Japan only
refers to any recycled material that is subsequently sold or taken back by someone
free-of-charge (i.e. where the producer must pay to offload the recycled materials, this
does not count towards the recycling rate), and that the EU system currently sets a
weight-based collection target rather than expressing their collection rate as a
percentage of the total WEEE in the system. For Japan, the recycling target for
televisions has been set at 55 %, but in 2003 Japan was already exceeding this target
by achieving a recycling rate of 78 % (all at a positive monetary flow). 434 The Japanese
system is also generally viewed as providing greater incentives for ‘eco-design’ of EEE
because, as stated above, the manufacturers/producers are closely linked to
recycling plants, with the consequent emergence of ‘design for disassembly’ and the
‘automated disassembly using smart materials (ADSM). 435
20.2.1.4 Norway
Although Norway is not a member of the EU, it implemented its own WEEE policy back
in 1998 entitled the “Reduction, Collection and Recovery of Electric and Electronic
Appliances”. In 2006, this policy was revised to include the EU WEEE Directive
requirement that all producers/distributors of EEE are registered. The WEEE policy in
Norway applies to a slightly broader number of products than in the EU, including the
distribution and metering of electric current and electromagnetic fields.
433 M. Yamaguchi (2002) Extended Producer Responsibility in Japan – Introduction of “EPR” into
Japanese Waste Policy and some Controversy, Japanese Environmental Management Association for
Industry, ECP Newsletter 19, pp 1-12.
434 K. Sasaki (2004) Examining the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment Management
Systems In Japan and Sweden, Master’s Thesis, Lund University, Sweden.
435 Arcadis (2008) Study on RoHS and WEEE Directives, European Commission DG Enterprise and
Industry March 2008.
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