listed home appliances are transferred from retailers to manufactures in an appropriate manner. This allows for consumers and businesses to check whether recycling is performed properly or not. Recycling process The utilization of electronic waste resources is around 50% currently and is growing. The LRHA states that consumers are responsible for the cost of recycling most home appliances. This includes transportation costs and recycling fees. The consumers pay the retailers to pick up the waste. They then recycle it and the consumers pay the related fees. In order to make the system more balanced, if a consumer asks a retailer to take the used home appliance for any reason (most likely because they purchased a new appliance), the retailer is obligated to pick it up. The retailers usually take it back to the manufacturer. The manufacturer is required to have a system in place to recycle the electronic waste, and this system must also maintain a certain percentage of utilization from these resources. Part of this process is not regulated by the government, and that is the process of acquiring a recycling facility and/or how the recycling is currently done. Manufacturers can hire anyone they want to build the facility and they can also recycle electronic waste in any way they deem fit. The only thing it must maintain is the amount of utilization from each material that comes into the facility. The manufacturers often want to recycle the products in the cheapest way possible and this leaves a lot of room for improvement. Future use and alternatives Today, Japan has one of the highest recycling rates in all of Asia, but these numbers are more closely related to the recycling of plastics, paper, and glass. Of the 650,000 tons of home appliances and small electronics discarded per year, less than 100,000 tons are actually collected for recycling. With this, new ideas and initiatives have been developed to counteract this huge gap. With the Olympics heading to Japan in 2020, there have been strong suggestions towards using e-waste in the gold medals. Although the IOC requires that each medal contain at least six grams of gold, Japan's Olympic organizing committee believes that the idea is a feasible one. See also Waste management in Japan Environmental issues in Japan Electronic waste References External links Recycling in Japan Japan Waste in Japan Environmental issues in Japan