The Japanese Ministry of the Environment has been encouraging unit-based pricing, and city municipalities have introduced this policy in the hope of achieving an emission reduction effect, a reallocation effect from recycling, and financial benefits. However, several years after the introduction of unit-based pricing, some municipalities have reported an increase in waste emissions as compared to the emissions in the first year that the policy was introduced. We determine whether or not the rebound effect is statistically significant by using data on Japanese cities’ waste emissions under unit-based pricing obtained by panel data analysis. The results of estimation reveal that although long-run reduction eventually erodes the price elasticity of non-recyclable waste, the level of erosion is very trivial. The results of estimation for recyclable waste provide significant evidence of the long-term learning effect of sorting waste.