Container and Packaging Recycling Law and China's Black Hole - Globalization and Institutional Fatigue (Early 2000s)

Container and Packaging Recycling Law and China's Black Hole - Globalization and Institutional Fatigue (Early 2000s)

The year 2000 marked a major turning point in Japan's legal system, the first year of recycling. Starting with the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law (promulgated in 1995 and fully enforced in 2000), individual recycling laws were enacted in various fields such as home appliances, construction, and food, and the "Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society" established the principles. The public also began to establish a behavioral pattern of sorting and discharging waste.

However, immediately after the system was put in place, the global economy was ironically hit by a stormy wave: in 2001, China joined the WTO, spurring economic growth, and began buying up recycled materials such as ferrous and nonferrous metals, used paper, and plastics from all over the world. China's enormous demand has turned even Japan's sorted garbage into a "resource," and the number of items that can be sold at high prices on the export market has increased dramatically.

Under these circumstances, Japan's recycling system faced an unexpected "resource drain. In accordance with the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, municipalities collect the waste by sorting at taxpayer expense, and despite the high cost of recycling borne by companies, only the portion of the waste that is valuable as a resource flows out to China. All that was left was "unsaleable trash" that was costly to dispose of.

One of the factors that contributed to this distorted structure is a comparison with the German system. Germany has adopted a "parallel dual system" in which all collection and disposal of containers and packaging are independently operated by DSD (a private corporation). There is no cost burden on municipalities. Japan, on the other hand, has adopted a "dual system in series," in which municipalities first collect the containers and packaging, and a designated corporation (the Container Recycling Association of Japan) takes them back later. The collection is done twice, and the cost is also double. As a result, the cost of sorting (collection and transportation) was far higher than the cost of recycling (resource recycling), and the burden on municipalities through taxes was excessive.

This systemic fatigue eventually led to suspicions that "sorting is meaningless" and "it is a loss for the municipality to bear the cost," and some municipalities even began to "boycott" the designated corporations, terminating their contracts with them. Even though the law existed, the local authorities were losing confidence in it.

This chapter clearly shows how the illusion of a "recycling-oriented society" in the early 2000s was destroyed by the reality of the global resource market. In the background, the national will to maintain Japan's zero-emission policy and image as an "environmentally advanced country" intersects with the existence of China, a "black hole" in the global resource market. Institutional fatigue, cost collapse, and loss of international competitiveness...... are all part of this thought-provoking analysis of how the ideal of recycling is at the mercy of the real economy.