Limitations of the CFC Recovery System and Illegal Release (September 2006)

Limitations of the CFC Recovery System and Illegal Release (September 2006)

In 2006, Japan was supposed to have a system in place for the recovery and management of CFCs used in air conditioners and refrigerators. Particularly for household appliances, the "Home Appliance Recycling Law" enacted in 2001 mandated proper disposal of four types of home appliances, and the recovery of CFCs was considered to be part of this law. In addition, the 2002 Law for the Recovery and Destruction of Fluorocarbons imposed an obligation to recover commercial equipment as well, but the actual situation fell far short of the system's ideals.

During this period, surveys conducted by the Ministry of the Environment and other organizations revealed that the CFC recovery rate at the time of disposal was sluggish. Most refrigerant CFCs for residential use were released into the atmosphere without being recovered, and for commercial use, recovery failure by illegal or unqualified companies was rampant. The causes were businesses that did not want to incur the cost of recovery work and the very loose monitoring system of the system, which meant that the risk of being caught in the event of a violation was small.

As a result, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which contribute to ozone depletion, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are powerful greenhouse gases, were released in large quantities, raising concerns about their environmental impact on a global scale. Although the phase-out of CFCs, in particular, had been internationally agreed to in the Montreal Protocol of 1987, the effective management system in Japan was not sufficient.

The background at the time was the heavy burden of achieving the greenhouse gas reduction targets promised in the Kyoto Protocol, which called for reducing emissions of CFCs, which have a larger per-ton impact than CO₂. However, the gap between institutional design and practice, the stove-piped administration of the regulatory authorities, and the reluctant attitude of the industry were the breeding ground for such environmental destruction.

This problem was later reconstructed in the form of the enactment of the "CFC Emission Control Law" (enforced in 2015), but as of 2006, it was precisely at the trough of the system, and the serious situation remained a hole in the global warming measures.