<p>In August 2012, Act on Promotion of Recycling of Small Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment （APRSEEE） was enacted in Japan. Under the law, which is entrusted to the voluntary efforts of each entity by bypassing the basic principle of EPR （Extended Producer Responsibility） set by the Basic Act on Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society（BAESMCS）. The law launched a market-principle based scheme encouraging relevant parties to fulfill their responsibilities voluntarily by utilizing the revenue of precious metals, rare metals, etc. contained in waste small household appliances. However, municipalities and businesses reached only about 70% of the collection target set by the government, and the number of municipalities that hand over the collected small home appliances to certified businesses with an inverse onerous contract increased from 11.0% in 2017 to 14.6% in 2018. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate whether the new scheme by collecting useful metals （especially rare metals） can be operated with the "profitability" that was initially envisioned at the time of enactment of the law, based on the actual conditions of implementation sites of municipalities.</p><p>This work investigated the efforts of 20 government-designated cities in Japan, which have a large population and are thought to affect the overall collection amount and grouped them into three types based on the annual collection amount of small household appliances. Then, Okayama city, Kyoto city and Osaka city were taken as the cases in point of the three groups and their current conditions regarding small home appliances recycling were analyzed as well.</p><p>The actual conditions of the three cities were found very different but their issues are rather common as summarized as: （1） difficulty in securing the collection amount of small home appliances particularly of valuable ones, （2） the cost of inverse onerous contract may exceed the normal waste disposal cost, （3） the hard-to-see expense such as personnel cost and fuel cost, （4） the asymmetry of information between municipalities and certified disposal businesses in terms of valuables in wastes such as rare metal content.</p><p>By considering the background factors of the issues that are occurring at the implementation sites of municipalities and the attributes of businesses related to small household appliances, the target recycle items were divided into: （1） mobile phones and computers, （2） high-quality small-sized products other than mobile phones and computers. （3） large household appliances, and （4） miscellaneous small household appliances. In addition, it was indicated that it is necessary to require the disclosure of information such as the indication of the content rate of metals and hazardous substances contained in products, and to clarify the "producer" responsibility for each of the above categories.</p>