The Zero-Waste Experiment of a Small Japanese Town

July 17, 2008

Human beings are one of the few species that leave non-biodegradable waste products in their wake. The problems resulting from this imbalance are older than civilization itself; evidence suggests that some stone-age communities were actually forced out of their cave dwellings by their own ash heap.

But the small town of Kamikatsu, located in one of the most remote and mountainous regions of Japan, is looking to tackle the millennia-old problem through an extensive, nearly-omnipresent system of waste management that, at least nominally, achieves its goal of zero waste. The root of the program seems to be focusing the responsibility for garbage collection down to the individual household. There are no trash pickups in Kamikatsu, and each household creates and manages its own organic compost bin.

For leftover plastics, metals, industrial oils and other non-compostible materials, residents must carry their own waste to a garbage center, where it’s sorted into one of the 34 individual disposal categories. Larger bins are set out for oversized metal wastes, and cardboard and newspapers are stacked separately rather than composted for easy recycling. It’s a sweeping, all-inclusive, top-down approach to waste management.

I’ll admit that on paper, there are tremendous incentives for a municipality to take on such a massive project. Cost savings in garbage collection alone would be massive, while having smaller, non-overflowing landfills leaves more space available for other civic projects. Plus the untold tons of recyclable materials created by the project create an important additional source of income for the community.

The only problem is, people don’t like it. Even in a small town like Kamikatsu, some 40 percent of the population is not in favor of the project. Larger towns and cities in places with more individualistic and freewheeling social norms would be hard pressed to enforce such an aggressive plan without ending up with a full-scale revolt. Just the logistics of coordinating collection centers so that the entire population of a full-sized American city could drop off and separate their garbage each day, one car at a time, are daunting.

It seems to me that the best implementation is some sort of middle ground between an authoritarian program and the current, rather laissez faire approach, most governments take in regulating waste management. For example, taxing a household based on the mass of garbage it creates each year, or divvying up remaining space in a local landfill, and then allowing residents to buy and sell it amongst themselves could provide sufficient market incentive for citizens to reduce their consumption of goods and production of waste, without imposing too heavy-handed a system upon them.

Photo by Flickr user Autan