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Applicable to fourteen product areas, including PCs, this law requires manufacturers to expand and promote design for the environment that reuses old parts in new products and eliminates unnecessary parts, thus conserving resources.
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This law was revised to reduce the nitrous oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) emissions contained in exhaust gases. Businesses using 30 or more designated vehicles must submit a management plan to the Ministry of the Environment.
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Although PET bottles and some plastic containers have been recycled since April 1997, the April 2000 revision expanded the law to include paper packaging and other plastic containers, and requires customers, local governments, and manufacturers to step up recycling efforts.
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The original Energy Conservation Law was adopted in 1979 to rationalize energy consumption and develop a more sound economy as a means of securing energy supplies. Following the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, the law was revised in 1993 to include energy-saving measures taken from a global standpoint. Unanimous agreement in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in 1997 in Kyoto, served as the impetus for revisions in the law that stepped up energy conservation, and the revised version of the law took effect on April 1, 1999.
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The law holds companies liable for improper management and unlawful disposal of waste by outside management companies. Penalties and remedy obligations are imposed upon the companies that generated the waste.
Note
In May 2000, NEC Fielding jointed NEC Group companies in obtaining an NEC Groupwide license from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as Industrial Waste Disposal Executor for Wide-Area Recycling.
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The Law Concerning Reporting etc. of Releases to the Environment of Specific Chemical Substances and Promoting Improvements in Their Management was enacted on July 13, 1999.
PRTR system
This system requires businesses to register and disclose the volume of harmful chemical substances emitted or transferred (through waste disposal) to the environment.
(Effective April 2001)
Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) system
Under this system, businesses are required to provide MSDSs to anyone handling chemical substances.
(Effective January 2001)
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This law promotes the procurement of environmentally sound products by Japanese national and local governments and public organizations. These agencies are required to create and publish their own procurement policies based on the basic national policy.
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