Japan’s home appliance recycling is advancing day to day with the development of advanced technologies. Current home appliance recycling primarily follows two trends: one is the advancement of closed-loop plastic recycling, and the other involves technologies for automating manual disassembly processes and optimizing machinery equipment. We introduce advanced plastic recycling technologies, life cycle assessment evaluations of plastic recycling, and automated processes to improve mixed plastics separation. We have contributed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions one-fourth of those of virgin material production through recycling and improving the accuracy of plastic separation.
Fujisaki et al. (2026) studied this question.