The objectives of the recycling system and the achievements
The two primary objectives of launching the recycling system were to demonstrate to the society, orienting toward recycling, positive attitude of the industry and to avoid regulatory intervention by voluntary industry actions, and to address the concerns over dioxins.
The PPFA recycling system was developed in the process amending the Act on the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources of 1991 and was recognized in the revised law of 2001 [
37]. Designated as Resource Saving Industry under the law, PVC pipes and fittings industry were requested to undertake five actions. First, it should promote the use of recyclates in collaboration with the construction industry, local and national governments to increase the share of products made of recyclates as much as possible. Second, it should deploy facilities and equipment for recycling as necessary. Third, it should advance technologies such as removing alien materials and to use more degraded post-use products. Fourth, it should make a plan for and report of its action every year. Fifth, it should endeavor to disseminate information for understanding of product users to facilitate recycling. These actions were what PPFA was already undertaking. Therefore, the law was seen to recognize and encourage the efforts of the industry, and not to introduce additional controls or burdens.
The guideline (2000) of the Construction Materials Recycling Law [
38] recognizes and encourages the industry efforts by saying that PVC pipes and fittings industry has started its own effort of recycling, therefore, concerned parties need to cooperate with the system as much as possible. Being successful to avoid rigid regulations, PPFA has kept flexibility in operation and modification of the system.
With regard to the objective to address the dioxins issue, the Green Purchasing Network (GPN) Guidelines, which give guidance to green purchases of the governments, were revised in February 2014 to dispel an article which mandated the indication of the use of PVC materials for some ten product items due to the concern on dioxins generation [
39]. The industry efforts to recycle PVC products were considered to have played an important role for the revision of GPN guidelines.
Economy and practicality of the recycling system
There are four reasons that PPFA was successful.
First, PPFA had closely studied the situation of available and potential technologies for recycling before it launched its recycling system, and designed a system to take advantage of the existing business entities. The partner companies could expect to receive more waste products stably, and appreciated that PPFA could buy their products. They also wished that the products made with recyclates would not compete with those with virgin resins in the market [
40]. PPFA successfully designed the system to respond to these expectations.
Considering that lower grade pipes made with recyclates were sold to niche markets for Do-It-Yourself and others, PPFA aimed to produce high quality pipes with recyclates of comparative performance to virgin resin JIS pipes so that they could be publicly procured. With a prospect of increased amount of stable supply of the waste products, the recycle-business partners were willing to invest in the business. PPFA supported them to install additional facilities and equipment for recycling. Some intermediate treatment companies made investments for themselves.
Second, PPFA developed the collection network effectively, even with introduction of costly intermediate receiving points as a temporary measure since PPFA considered it necessary to widen the network to cover the country as soon as possible. In fact, the transportation cost of wastes from the intermediate receiving points to partner companies was as high as 50 yen (40 US cents) per kg [
41,
42], almost twice the cost for landfill. In addition, PPFA covered the operational costs of the stockyards. The number of the intermediate receiving points was gradually reduced to zero in 2004 as the number of contracted intermediate treatment companies grew to 60. In reality, volume received at the receiving points to 300–600 tons per year, or 3–5 % of the total amount of recycling in the PPFA system. However, the existence of intermediate receiving points is considered to have contributed to earn reliability and credibility.
Third, PPFA actively disseminated information to local governments, association of pipe installation companies, recycle businesses, and construction and demolition companies to develop connections among them. By this, more post-use products which were otherwise kept underground or sent to landfill were considered and brought into the PPFA recycling system. Indeed, many partner companies reported that the amount of receiving waste products increased after they had joined the PPFA system [
43]. Misawa Home, a major home builder with its own network for collection and separation of waste construction materials took advantage of the PPFA system. The trucks which transport new construction materials to a construction site carry back wastes from the site to a PPFA partner to improve economic efficiency [
44]. Sekisui House and Daiwa House, other major home builders, are doing similarly, carefully selecting PVC wastes at their construction sites to sell the wastes to an intermediate treatment company contracted with PPFA [
45]. Takenaka Construction Company works together with a PPFA partner company (Nisshin Chemical Co.) to do thorough separation at the sites of construction before the waste products are sent to Takenaka’s focal stock point for recycling. Transportation costs can be reduced by carrying back many kind of separated materials at once, so, PVC pipes and fittings which are emitted in small volume at each site can be economically collected [
46].
Fourth, the industry fully recognized the need for assuring quality of the products made of recyclates and developed guidelines for acceptable wastes products and its own standards followed by JIS standards to ensure the quality of products with recyclates. By these standards, the pipes made with recyclates became qualified for government green procurements.
With these efforts, the cost of operating the recycling system was significantly reduced while the volumes of recycling sharply increased. PPFA allocated 1 million USD or more for the operation in addition to the initial investment for equipment and facilities which amounted at around 1.5 million USD in total. However, the operation cost has been more than halved recent years. The cost of recycling for PPFA was more than 20 US cents at the beginning, which was comparable to the cost for final disposal to landfill, is now several cents per kilogram of collected wastes. However, production of pipes made with recyclates to meet JIS or PPFA standards is more costly than that with virgin resin. These years, significant amounts of recyclates are purchased by export traders who consequently increase the price of waste products.
The Law on Promoting Green Purchasing [
47] obligates the national government to procure the goods which meet the criteria set under the law. However, it only encourages local governments, which are more influential in infrastructure developments and maintenances to do so. They are not motivated to buy goods with recyclates at prices higher than those without recyclates. This is a major reason why the production of three-layer pipes is limited.