50
The numbers of shipments for personal computers are not shown in Figs. 3.4 and
3.5. But the desktop personal computers’ shipments declined from 5,192,000  in
2006 fiscal year (April 2006–March 2007) to 1,753,000 in 2015 fiscal year (April
2015–March 2016). Similarly, the notebook personal computers’ shipments
declined from 6,858,000 in 2006 fiscal year (April 2006–March 2007) to 53,582,015
fiscal year (April 2015–March 2016) (Japan Electronics and Information Technology
Industries Association 2017).
Collected personal computers are treated and recycled at very high rates (over
70%). But notebook personal computers collected from the households are recycled
at the lower rates around 57.1% (in 2015 fiscal year (April 2015–March 2016)
according to the Personal Computer Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (often termed as
“PC3R”) Promotion Association (2017). The Personal Computer Reduce, Reuse
and Recycle Promotion Association states that after the collected 12.87million units
of personal computers go through the final treatments, 2.8  million units will be
reused domestically, 3.64 million units will be recycled as resources domestically,
0.35 million units will be put in the landfills, 2.15 million units will be exported
overseas for reuse purpose, and 3.08  million units will be set aside for resource
purposes in the 2014 fiscal year (April 2014–March 2015).
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
Weight (tonne)
Collected Notebook PC
Treated
Recycled
Fig. 3.5 Trend of the number of recycled notebook personal computers. (Source: compiled by the
authors using information for public use from PC3R Promotion Association (2017)
H. Hayami and M. Nakamura