This article considers how Japan and the EU manage the recycling of consumer appliances and PCs=cellular phones through a review of their current collection and treatment systems for WEEE (waste electronic and electrical equipment), and on the basis of its findings offers recommendations for the improvement of these systems. We hope thereby to provide information that will be helpful for the better management of WEEE in developed countries as well as in our own. On the basis of our findings, we make the following recommendations: (1) that if Japan hopes to increase its collection rate of WEEE, it has to change its system from one where payment is made at the time of disposal to one where payment is made in advance, whereas the EU has to offer both users and recyclers greater incentives to collect more WEEE; (2) that, within the Japanese system, we have to reduce the cost without reducing the quality of recycling, which, because consumers pay at the time of disposal, is too expensive, whereas the EU must restore the former quality of its recycling, which has been allowed to deteriorate because of the pressure to reduce costs; and (3) that Japan and the EU need to set up a common fund that will enable them to cooperate in the collection and treatment of WEEE to oversee the problems occasioned by the practice of cross-border recycling.

In an environmental economic analysis of the largest biogas plant in Japan, a number of matters were clarified through the quantitative assessment of the plantʼs investment effects and environmental functions. Income earned from waste processing remains as important as revenue from electricity sales even after the introduction of a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme significantly boosted the latter. This confirms that the plant successfully performs the two functions of treating organic waste and utilizing renewable energy. However, the initial investment has not been fully recouped even though electricity is purchased under the FIT scheme. One reason for this is insufficient income from the heat generated, and another is that the public welfare functions of the environmental measures have not been assessed economically. In terms of contribution to the local economy, attention should be paid not only to jobs at the plant but also to the facilityʼs role as a basis for the survival of agriculture and other local industries. Considering these points, support for the biogas plant via the FIT scheme and agricultural subsidies can be seen as economically useful and necessary.

No abstract

Keywords: e-waste, house appliances, recycling, TV sets, air conditioners Abstract. As 10 years have passed since the Japanese home electrical appliance recycling system came into operation, the results of the system have become clearer, and it is therefore time for us to analyze and evaluate its performance in terms of both the environment and the economy. The system covers 4 specified house appliances, and although roughly 2/3 of these discarded appliances are collected and recycled formally by the manufactures, the greater part of the remaining 1/3 is exported as used items or scrap. Consequently, the government has issued guidelines for the reuse and recycling as countermeasures against illegal dumping and to regulate the export of e-scrap.

Aikitu Tanakadate (1856-1952) was a pioneer in geomagnetic research in Japan. This paper focuses on Tanakadale's investigation of vertical, electrical currents between the Earth and his atmosphere and his role in a controversy over these currents. This controversy arose after Adolf Schmidt (1860-1944) hypothesized these vertical currents in 1895. Debate was aroused over this question for two reasons: firstly it might upset the premise of the Gaussian theory of geomagnetic potential; and secondly it seemed to provide a key to revealing the mechanism of geomagnetism. Tanakadale did not doubt the existence of such currents, but he was skeptical about the method with which the hypothesis was tested. After 1939 the controversy died down, but never ended. The recent solution of this problem in 1992 shows that Tanakadate was far-sighted in criticizing the validity of the method which others used to test the hypothesis.