Japan’s Circular Economy Vision Under the Action Plan | Chapter 9Comprehensive Chemical Management: Systems and Cooperation

A wide variety of chemicals are used in industrial activities and daily life, while some substances are generated unintentionally through processes such as incineration. Because inadequate management can harm human health and living environments through environmental pollution, measures cover the entire life cycle from manufacture and use through disposal.

The foundation of these measures consists of the Environmental Survey of Chemical Substances, the Chemical Substances Control Law, the PRTR Law, the Dioxins Special Measures Law, and the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act. Survey results are used as basic information for adding regulated substances, assessing risks, identifying emissions, and improving management.

Environmental assessment consists of three systems: the Initial Environmental Survey, the Detailed Environmental Survey, and the Monitoring Survey. The initial survey examines substances for designation, the detailed survey supports risk assessment of priority assessment chemical substances, and the monitoring survey tracks substances such as PCBs that raise concerns about persistence, bioaccumulation, and long-range transport over time.

System operations are structured to manage substances according to their properties and exposure pathways through prior review, emission reporting and disclosure, application of environmental and emission standards, establishment of pesticide registration standards, and phased risk assessment.

Risk communication, through which the public, businesses, government agencies, and researchers share information and build mutual understanding, is also part of the measures; databases, guidebooks, policy dialogues, and expert dispatches support decision-making.

Domestic measures are connected with the domestic implementation plan for the Global Framework on Chemicals adopted in 2023, the POPs Convention, the Minamata Convention, and OECD activities, linking regulation, assessment, monitoring, and capacity building internationally.

Residents will have easier access to information on environmental residues, emissions data by facility, average intake from food and the environment, and child development and environmental factors. This will strengthen the basis for addressing concerns and building dialogue and consensus in local communities.

Companies are required to manage information and ensure safety across the supply chain, including prior reviews of new chemicals, PRTR reporting, responses to products subject to import bans, information transfer to waste treatment operators, and compliance with overseas regulations. At the same time, environmentally conscious design, alternative substances, and voluntary management initiatives may be valued by investors.

Local governments and field operations must conduct continuous monitoring and responses suited to local conditions, including confirming sites exceeding standards, issuing orders and guidance to emission facilities, addressing soil-contaminated areas, conducting environmental surveys during land alteration, and monitoring groundwater.

In policymaking, it is important to reflect measurement results and health and ecological risk assessments in regulation and system reviews, thereby strengthening the ability to address issues that are difficult to assess under existing systems alone, including endocrine-disrupting effects, combined effects, nanomaterials, and pharmaceuticals.

International cooperation will involve using Japan's systems, measurement technologies, and past experience to build capacity in the Asia-Pacific region and developing countries, while sharing regulatory trends in the EU and Asian countries with domestic companies to advance international regulatory harmonization and responses to economic activities.

For dioxins, the average daily intake in fiscal 2024 was approximately 0.41 pg-TEQ per kilogram of body weight, below the tolerable daily intake of 4 pg-TEQ/kg bw/day. Total emissions in 2024 were 92 g-TEQ/year, below the reduction target of 176 g-TEQ/year.

Meanwhile, in fiscal 2024, 28 facilities or businesses exceeded emission standards under the Dioxins Law: 27 facilities subject to air standards and 1 business subject to water-quality standards. Orders under the law numbered 6 for air-related matters and 0 for water-related matters; guidance other than orders numbered 520 for air-related matters and 24 for water-related matters. Six soil-contamination-control areas had been designated by the end of fiscal 2024, and projects based on the countermeasure plans had been completed.

Pesticides must be registered under the Agricultural Chemicals Control Act, and the Minister of the Environment establishes standards concerning crop residues, soil residues, harm to plants and animals in living environments, and water pollution. In fiscal 2025, standards for preventing harm to plants and animals in living environments were established or revised for 14 pesticides, and standards concerning water pollution were established or revised for 9 pesticides; methods for assessing long-term exposure were also examined.

In fiscal 2025, the 24th compilation of the Initial Environmental Risk Assessment was completed. The initial assessment of health and ecological risks covered 6 substances, the initial assessment of health risks covered 1 substance, and the initial assessment of ecological risks covered 3 substances, identifying substances requiring detailed assessment or additional information collection.

As of April 2026, 221 priority assessment chemical substances had been designated. By fiscal 2025, primary assessment phases II and III had begun for 65 substances, and the results of phase II and related assessments had been deliberated for 48 substances.

For risk communication, chemical advisers were dispatched 22 times in total during fiscal 2025, and policy dialogues were held in July 2025 and December 2025. The PRTR Guidebook, Easy Chemical Substances Guide, Chemikoko, J-CHECK, and NITE-CHRIP are provided as information platforms.

The Ecochil Study has been conducted since fiscal 2010 with approximately 100,000 parent-child pairs, and a detailed survey is being conducted among approximately 5,000 people selected from approximately 100,000 participants. Unit centers in 15 regions nationwide conduct follow-up, surveys for participants aged 13 and older began in fiscal 2024, and the 12-year-old school-age examination is continuing.

In reviewing the Chemical Substances Control Law, an advisory structure was established in September 2024 in response to the provision requiring review after five years had passed since enforcement of the 2017 amendment. At a joint meeting, the draft was broadly agreed on June 13, 2025, and an advisory report was submitted to the Minister of the Environment on July 22, 2025.

Based on the GFC domestic implementation plan formulated and published in April 2025, comprehensive chemical management is being advanced through an interministerial liaison meeting. Under the POPs Convention, resolutions were adopted in 2025 to add chlorpyrifos, medium-chain chlorinated paraffins, and LC-PFCA-related substances to the elimination targets, and their incorporation into domestic systems was deliberated.

The Minamata Convention was adopted in October 2013 and entered into force in August 2017. In December 2024, an enforcement order was revised to implement manufacturing restrictions on mercury-containing products, and monitoring of atmospheric mercury and related substances at Cape Hedo in Okinawa Prefecture and the Oga Peninsula in Akita Prefecture is continuing.