Recycling has always been good from a social perspective, but not always from a business perspective. In Japan, recycling of flat panel TVs will become required on April 1, 2009 under Japan’s Home Electric Appliance Recycling Law. Compelling companies to be good citizens is one approach, but if companies can make a profit by using green practices, it is much easier to establish.

Art Berman
Insight Media Consultant

As mentioned above, a central feature of the Japanese system is that recycling of home electrical appliances is an obligation. They have a physical, rather than a financial responsibility for the end-of-life disposal of their products.

To support the new law, we have learned that Kansai Recycling Systems Co. Ltd. has announced that its recycling line for flat panel TVs is poised to commence operations. The recycling line was installed at Kansai Recycling’s Second Plant. The company will recycle used LCD TVs and PDP TVs manufactured by its shareholding companies.

Kansai Recycling is a joint venture between Sharp with a 43.3% and Mitsubishi Materials with a 40.0% ownership interest. In addition, Sanyo, Sony, Hitachi Appliances, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi Electric each hold a 3.3% share in the company.

Kansai will recycle TVs by dividing them into two groups: large models, meaning greater than 32-inches, and smaller models. At this time, the equipment and processes used to accomplish the recycling do not appear to be sophisticated. Small TVs will be recycled manually though the use of so-called "large TV transfer equipment." This equipment carries the TVs to the recycling line to alleviate the burden on workers. The company has also developed a "large TV slope reverse worktable" that allows workers to easily reverse the front part of a television. This worktable enables workers to more efficiently and easily remove screws on both faces of a flat panel TV.

The initial size of the Kansai recycling line is small and Sharp expects the new line to recycle only about 30,000 flat panel TVs in fiscal 2009. Sharp intends to build expertise through the use of this line, which will grow in importance as the number of recycled flat panel TVs will rise sharply in the future.

In a small sampling of related Japanese recycling news, Panasonic built the Matsushita Eco Technology Center in western Japan to meet its obligations under recycled at 15 recycling plants across Japan. Sony is the principal shareholder in the Green Cycle Corp. plant. Mitsubishi Electric’s Higashihama Recycle Center in Ichikawa City is Japan’s first recycling plant for the home appliance industry.

We anticipate, and in fact eagerly await, more news of this type. The recent economic downturn is bad news. The rise in green consciousness is good news. Perhaps the best way for business to look at the situation is as one of opportunity. Opportunity to do well by doing good.