japan-原文.docVIP

Assessing Extended Producer Responsibility LAWS in JAPAN Take-back legislation provides an incentive for producers to incorporate environmental considerations into product design and to shift the responsibility for end-of-life products away from municipalities. A major computer chain store sells secondhand computers, computer parts, and digital equipment (e.g., digital cameras, DVD players) along with new products in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Production and consumption of massmanufactured goods have been the driving forces of Japan’s economy during the past several decades. In recent years, however, Japanese society has run into numerous environmental constraints: increasingly scarce landfill sites, concerns about disposal of toxic wastes, hazardous emissions from waste-management facilities, and high dependence on imports of raw materials. Public concern about environmental quality and waste-management practices has also been raised by several high-profile controversies. For example, anxiety over dioxin and other hazardous emissions from waste incinerators that are a primary method of municipal solid-waste disposal led to the adoption of the Law Concerning Special Measures against Dioxins in 1999. This legislation called for a 90% reduction in dioxin emissions by 2003 (1). The issue of waste disposal became increasingly prominent on the Japanese political agenda in the mid-to-late 1990s and culminated in the adoption of new laws aimed at safer and more effective waste management. Central to the Japanese approach is the use of extended producer responsibility (EPR) in the form of producer “take-back” legislation. The twin objectives of EPR are to provide an incentive for producers to incorporate environmental considerations into product design, and to shift the responsibility for end-of-life products (physically or financially, or both) upstream to the producer and away from municipalities. During the past decade, take-back legislation has been widely incorporated into Japan