Международная политика (english)

GLOBE INTERNATIONAL president TakashiKosugi established a Subcommittee on Low Emission Vehicles in his politicalparty in February this year. On June 2.2, the committee released an inter mediaryreport with propos als on how the government could promote the use of lowemission vehicles. The com mittee will put pressure on the Japanese governmentto take action along those lines.

Chaired by Kosugi, the com mittee has 25members.The reportcites Californian legislation as one reason for the Japanese gov ernment tofacilitate a break through in electric vehicle development. From 1908,California will require over 2 percent of all cars sold in the state to be 100percent emis sion free. The requirements will progressively rise. By the year2003, more than 10 per cent of cars must be of a zero emission type.

Low-emissionvehicles are still expensive and not satisfactory in terms of the distance theycan run per charge. Many problems also remain with the technology of batteries,one problem being that they become environmentally hazardous waste when usedup.The reportoutlines three main objectives 1 Price reductions due tohigher demand 2 Improved performance due to technical development and 3 Thecre ation of a social and economic environment for low emis sion vehicles.

One idea is to makelow-emission cars more visible and to provide special advan tages for the usersof such cars. The report suggests the introduction of car stickers to identifythe cars as being dif ferent. Subsidies and tax breaks on cars as well as alter nativefuels, special parking lots and lower tees on high ways and other toll roadsare some other proposals. Low-emission vehicles could be allowed to use streetlanes reserved for buses.

They could be used in conjunction with big eventssuch as the up-coming Olympic Games in Nagano.GLOBE Russia has begunpublishing a monthly newsletter to be distributed to the members of theEnvironment Committees of the Commonwealth of Independent States CIS , theParliaments and NGOs in Russia and in the CIS. The newsletter is in Russian.

Forcopies, contact GLOBE Russia, 103265 Moscow, Georgievsky per. 2, off. 554,Tel. 7- о95 292.61.25, Fax 7- o05 292.19.28, e-mail globe.russia sovcust. sprint.comRecyclingof Packaging in Japan and SwedenOn June 9, the Diet approvedthe Law to Promote the Separation, Collection and Reuse of Packaging Materialin order to create a system to recover and recycle or reuse discardedcontainers and

packing material.Household waste is anurgent problem for Japan. 1 he waste amounts to more than 50 million tons peryear, with discarded packaging material accounting for 57 percent of thistotal. Total capacity of landfills in Japan is estimated to last for less thaneight years. Landfills for the Tokyo metropolitan area are expected to liealready full by

March 1996.According to this pack agingrecycling law, responsi bility will be shared by con sumers, localadministrations and enterprises. Consumers will be required to separate usedcontainers and wrap ping from their garbage, local administration will beresponsible for collecting it separately, and enterprises which produce orutilize the container or wrapping will be responsible for recycling thematerials which have been collected. 1 his applies also to imported packagingor wrapping coming with imported goods.

Similar legislation hasbeen in effect in Sweden since October 1994. The Swedish Ordinance on ProducerLiability for Packaging Material clearly places respon sibility on theproducers. They are required to provide consumers with a system for separatingand collecting the packaging material and are also required to inform con sumersabout it.

Local adminis trations are freed from the responsibility to collectand dispose of such materials as have been separated from other waste byconsumers and producers in cooperation.The Japanese law appliesto bottles, cans, paper, plastic and all other types of contain ers. TheSwedish law speci fies certain types of packag ing and leaves out other pos siblematerials such as textiles and wood. Japan does not set specific targets forany materials while

Sweden sets national targets for each type of material towhich the law applies. The Environment Protection Agency is then responsiblefor ensuring I hat all companies comply.In Japan, therecycling system is headed by The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which willestablish and make public an overall plan for the collection of used packagingmaterial and its remaking into new prod ucts.

Local administrations are thenrequired to establish, make public and execute local plans for the collectionof discarded packaging. Consumers are required to separate the waste accordingto the guidelines set down by the local administrations. Finally, enterpriseswhich produce or make use of pack aging material will be respon sible forrecycling it after col lection.Producers canapply to the Ministry of Health and Welfare for an authorization to recyclematerials them selves or they can choose

to pay for the services of a spe cializedcorporation designat ed by the ministry. Such des ignated corporations will beavailable by January 1, 1997.In Sweden,industry cre ated a similar solution entire ly administrated by the busi nesscommunity. Four recy cling companies were estab lished. Any company can thenbecome a member and pay packaging fees for recy cling services. The recyclingcompanies are owned by major

Swedish industries and operate on a commercial butnon-profit basis. They formed the REPA-register company toadminister the memberships and fees, with 6,000 companies already members.Those who do not join are checked by the Environment Protection Agency to makesure they are complying with the law in some other way.