The period when waste plastics lost their way Late 1990s to 2000s

The period when waste plastics lost their way Late 1990s to 2000s

From the late 1990s to the 2000s, Japan experienced a stagnation in waste plastic processing. Although the oilification technology was expected to be a trump card for resource recycling, unstable sorting accuracy, difficulty in securing processing volume, limited sales channels for the generated oil, and high costs became barriers, and as crude oil prices dropped, businesses withdrew from the market one after another. As a result, treatment routes have become narrower, and municipalities and waste generators have been forced to choose the most cost-effective option, reverting to incineration or final disposal. Even though the recycling rate was maintained under the system, the actual resource cycle became dysfunctional, resulting in a tightening of final disposal sites and a long-term impact on the surrounding environment. The essence of this problem lies not in a lack of technology but in the structure of short-term cost competition in which environmental impact is not refle
cted in the price, thus indicating the limitations of Japan's environmental policy.