Waste management in Tokyo --background

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Waste management in Tokyo--background
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the real craft of exercising power in Japan
still lies at a very grass roots levelHendry

• In traditional communities it was more effective
  for neighbors to cooperate to achieve a goal
  which they shared than to appeal individually to
  the impersonal institutions of which they formed
  only a minor part.
• A degree of local autonomy persists
• Therefore self help groups form

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Political activist groups

• Environmental groups protest harmful industrial
  waste of large enterprises
• Minamata disease since 1956
• Mercury contaminated fish
• Shiranui Sea
• Methylmercury pollution from Chisso Corp.

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Activists attempt Mt. Fuji cleanup

• Fuji garbage problem potent symbol of
  environmental destruction wrought by decades of
  industrialization
• Nation with one of highest population densities
  on earth
• Danger of not being on UNESCO World Heritage list
• 85,260 tons of garbage collected , 2006-7

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Tokyos 23 wardslocal autonomy

• Each ward has different rules for recycling
• No fines neighbors keep one another in check
• A persons morality is really tested when it
  comes to disposal of trashSawachi, maintenance
  worker in charge of trash

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The dirty facts

• One landfill left in Tokyo
• Disneyland Tokyo Osaka airport built on garbage
• Daily 4,000 trucks dump garbage into Tokyo Bay
• Japan burns 80 of trash
• In 30 years Tokyo will run out of space to put
  garbagerecycling isnt enough
• Public parks are an option--horrifying

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Recycling

• Multiple categories
• Steel aluminum above 65
• Styrofoam, paper, plastic very low
• Product packaging a real problem
• 8 million tons of plastic generated yearly
• 2 million tons recycled
• Remainder burned or buried

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Power generation

• Saitama prefecturenear Tokyo
• REUSE plant burns 20,000 tons of garbage monthly
• Produces 6 million KW hours electricity monthly
• Sells 2 million KWH to Tokyo
• Burns 99 of garbage collected
• Ash melted into slag, mixed with cement to pave
  roads

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Home composting

• Machines that fit in kitchensnot outdoor pile as
  in U.S.
• 100,000 yen (951) to purchase
• Lack of awareness by public
• No place at home to use compostnot much land