Appliances Carried Across the Darkness -- End-of-Life Equipment and the Environmental Price (September 2006)

Appliances Carried Across the Darkness -- End-of-Life Equipment and the Environmental Price (September 2006)

In the mid-2000s, Japan took increasing pride in its status as an environmentally advanced country and sought to build a recycling-oriented society through such measures as the Home Appliance Recycling Law, which came into effect in 2001 and established a system for the proper disposal and recycling of used home appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners. At the same time, however, as if to exploit a blind spot in the system, large quantities of used home appliances were being illegally exported to Asian countries under the name of "used goods.

These appliances were not reused locally, but were often dismantled and incinerated under poor environmental conditions. Parts containing heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury, and refrigerants containing toxic gases flowed into the air, water, and soil without proper treatment, polluting the surrounding ecosystem. In the Philippines, Vietnam, and southern China, "resource debris" from Japan spread into rivers and fields, exposing local residents, plants, and animals to the poison.

Domestically, legal measures to prevent such exports were inadequate, and the line between "used" and "waste" was blurred. There were also disparities in the monitoring system at each port, and customs was not fully aware of all the details. Although the recycling rate had ostensibly increased, Japan's environmental burden was being imposed on other countries in ways that were invisible.

This "invisible export" was a reality far removed from the ideal of a resource-recycling society. In return for avoiding disposal costs in Japan, the skies and rivers of Asia are polluted. This fact is a mirror of an era that is reexamining the balance between the environment and the economy.