Gov't revises guidelines for 'green purchase' law+

TOKYO, Feb. 13 Kyodo -
The government Friday revised guidelines for the so-called ''green purchase''
law, which requires offices of government ministries and agencies to use
environmentally friendly products for designated equipment.

A major pillar of the revision, which goes into effect April 1, is lowering the
mandatory use of recycled paper in copier paper from 100 percent to 70 percent.
The relaxation is in response to a short supply of recycled paper and will
enable paper manufacturers to use diverse natural resources in making paper
used at government offices, such as lumber taken from trees felled to thin
forests.
According to an Environment Ministry estimate, annual production of 100 percent
recycled paper totals only 40,000 tons in Japan, making it difficult to fully
meet the annual demand for 300,000 tons from public offices in the country at
both the central and municipal government levels.
The revised guidelines allow copier paper used at government offices to contain
certain ratios of lumber from the felled trees and other sources certified by a
third-party entity as deriving from environmentally friendly activity.
The new guidelines, for the first time, set the minimum standards required in
functions of a solar-power system, such as power-generation efficiency and
durability.
The guidelines added cellphones to a list of items to be covered by the ''green
purchase'' law, requiring them to be disassembled at ease in view of the need
to recycle the rare metals they contain.
The current guidelines were set in 2001 in line with the ''green purchase'' law.
==Kyodo