Secondhand shops fret over new ban
Chiaki Toyoda Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
Dealers in secondhand home electric appliances are struggling to clear their inventory as 259 products will be banned as of April 1 for not having the Product Safety of Electrical Appliance and Material (PSE) mark.
Some dealers have criticized the measure, arguing it goes against the spirit of recycling items as much as possible.
A five-year moratorium on the ban set by the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law expires at the end of the month, and sale of the products, including television sets, refrigerators and audio goods, without the PSE marks will be prohibited.
Secondhand store owners have been especially hit hard. Some are drastically lowering prices of unmarked appliances to try to sell them by the end of the month.
"I didn't know of the measure until recently, and now I'm almost out of business," one dealer said.
The law was enacted in April 2001 to improve the safety of home appliances, replacing an older law on electrical products. The law obliges manufacturers to put PSE marks on their products after voluntary safety checks. Importers must place the marks after having overseas manufacturers perform safety checks.
Though the law prohibits the sale of products without the marks, a five to 10 year moratorium was set.
Most products manufactured after the enactment of the law bear the marks, but many secondhand products do not.
An Ishibashi Music Corp. store in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, sells a wide variety of musical instruments and equipment. Many of the products on sale for professional musicians and dedicated amateurs are expensive, including an amplifier priced at 500,000 yen.
The store stopped buying secondhand products without PSE marks on Feb. 1 and began this month to discount products without the marks.
It is possible for dealers to put a PSE mark on products if they register as manufacturers with the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and conduct voluntary safety checks.
Ishibashi Music did so in February, but had not decided whether to place the marks after voluntary checks, because, according to Ishibashi Music, the manufacturers should take responsibility for fire and other accidents caused by their products.
Though selling products without the marks will be illegal, rental, donation and export will still be allowed. Some dealers are trying to clear inventory through such methods.
Seikatsusoko Co., operator of about 220 secondhand shops in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, said home electric appliances without the marks account for 70 percent to 80 percent of its inventory of such goods. The company will start a rental service in April to handle the inventory in which the products will be rented for the duration of their guarantee periods and given away when the periods expire.
The service is within the bounds of the law.
Recyclemaster Japan, an Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture-based company that buys used products from households and companies, operates eight secondhand goods auction sites for dealers nationwide and plans to export products without the marks.
The company is considering establishing subsidiaries in Vietnam and other countries to export products to other Asian countries after safety inspections are carried out.
A Recyclemaster spokesperson said: "We have many products five or six years old without the marks. We want them to be used overseas rather than thrown away."
Since fiscal 2000, the ministry has notified dealers of the measure via industry associations of manufacturers and large store chains by distributing pamphlets and holding meetings. But because most secondhand stores are independently managed, the notice seems not to have reached all dealers.
Recently, the ministry's Product Safety Division in charge of the measure has received up to 150 inquiries a day.
Koichiro Ogawa, who buys secondhand electric appliances from hotels and companies in Tokyo and sells them to dealers, said, "I learned of the PSE mark rule in February."
"There are many dealers in the same situation as me. Doesn't the government care if a huge number of products are made waste?" he asked.
Ogawa formed an association in February with fellow dealers to discuss the issue, and represented the group in asking the ministry for an extension of the moratorium.
But the ministry refused. "Because other dealers had made preparations toward April 1, the ministry cannot extend the period," a ministry official said.
Prof. Kenji Tanaka at the University of Electro-Communications' graduate school said, "A mandatory moratorium deprives consumers of their freedom of choice to buy a wide range of products."
Tanaka, a researcher of system safety studies, added, "If the measure results in the disposal of usable products, it goes against the promotion of recycling."
(Mar. 8, 2006)
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