Japanese Sort Trash into 10 Categories
by TreeHugger on 05.13.05
According to the New York Times, the city of Yokohama recently doubled the number of garbage categories to 10. It provides residents with a 27-page booklet on how to sort their trash. In the sort scheme, lipstick goes into burnables and lipstick tubes (after the contents have been used up) into "small metals" or plastics. Kettle under 12" go into small metals, but over 12" they go into bulky refuse. The booklet includes detailed instructions for disposing of over 518 items. Yokohama's goal is to reduce incinerated garbage by 30 percent over the next five years. But Kamikatsu's goal is even more ambitious: eliminating garbage by 2020. In the last four years, Kamikatsu has halved the amount of incinerator-bound garbage and raised its recycled waste to 80 percent, town officials said. Each household now has a subsidized garbage disposal unit that recycles raw garbage into compost. :: NYTimes [by Justin Thomas]
Impressive! I bet they even use the methane from the compost to make electricity or power CNG cars/appliance/etc!
We really need (here in North-America) to learn from the Japanese and Europeans.
I read about this a while ago through the personal (abnd very funny) blog posted by an american ALT in Japan. His latest post comments on the article:
http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Hakushaku
and the original rant is here:
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Hakushaku&tab=weblogs&uid=31332572
(about halfway down, under the heading "Eco-karma" if you fancy the search feature, as the entry is rather lengthy).
Just amazing.
The problem is, as it gets more complex, the average Joe (Or should I say Yoshi in this circumstance?) will tend to just throw his hands up and just toss it in the regular, landfill-bound, trash bin.
All I know is that I am in Florida right now and there does not seem to be any sort of recycling going on. I live in Toronto so it is odd and upsetting to see everyone throw their pop (soda!) cans and water bottles in the garbage.
Scott,
Are you serious? That's quite terrible. You'd think that recycling would be a pretty basic and ordinary thing by now.
Salut a tous