Given Japan's acute shortage of landfill sites, the introduction of the Home Appliances Recycling Law on April 1 heralds a new era in the nation's efforts to promote recycling.
While the appliance law will affect both consumers and manufacturers, it is only one of a raft of new laws geared toward making companies shoulder a greater responsibility for recycling their products, in the belief that this will spur them to develop more advanced, and eco-friendly, technologies and products.
According to one government official, the new legislation constitutes an attempt to end the era of mass production and mass consumption, and subsequently to realize sustainable development.