Digging up urban mines Advancing recycling of used home appliances

Small home appliance recycling ticket sold in Bic Camera store

　Used small home appliances, which used to be waste, contain reusable metals such as iron, aluminum, copper, precious metals, and rare metals, and are also called "urban mines". According to the Small Home Appliance Recycling Association, about 650,000 tons of small home appliances are used every year in Japan. Among them, useful metals account for 280,000 tons (approximately 84.4 billion yen annually). However, only about 15% of small home appliances are collected, and according to statistics from the Ministry of the Environment, only about 100,000 tons were collected in fiscal 2018. In order to utilize these useful resources, the "Small Home Appliance Recycling Law" was enacted in 2013 to encourage recycling. Efforts by local governments that collect at stations, certified business operators, home appliance mass retailers, etc. are spreading. Recently, attention has been focused on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games prize medals, which are made from used home appliance metals. Participated in the collection of wastes and raised the momentum for recycling. Considering the convenience of customers, recycling efforts at home appliance stores are also progressing. The Air BicCamera Aqua City Odaiba store (Minato-ku, Tokyo) sells recycling coupons that make it easy to dispose of personal computers and small home appliances. Depending on the product, there is a free trade-in service at the time of purchase, but there are also sales of recycling coupons only. If you purchase the same ticket, you can recycle it simply by completing the collection procedure from your home and shipping it. If you put it in a box, you can use it for the same 1958 yen, and it is said to be popular with buyers. The store manager says, "We can acquire new customers by considering not only sales but also after-sales services such as disposal." Miura Musen Shokai (Minato Ward, Nagoya City) takes over home appliances that are more than 10 to 15 years old, such as microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, and dishwashers, when elderly customers replace them, and delivers them to traders. From this year, the Aichi Electronics Industry Association, of which the president of the company serves as vice chairman, has partnered with Lynette Japan Recycle (Nagoya City) to start a home delivery recycling collection service for small home appliances. If a customer purchases a recycling ticket from a union-affiliated appliance store, a collection and delivery company will come to the customer's home and collect the small home appliances in a cardboard box. Cardboard boxes that can be collected must be 140 cm or less on three sides and weigh no more than 20 kg. The company anticipates demand from elderly people who refrain from going out or who no longer use cars.

Dempa Newspaper Press Department, Media Business Headquarters