Final Destination of all Wastes in Japan

As Japan faces land scarcity, there is lesser landfill sites for rubbish and people are expected to practice recycling diligently. When all recycling efforts have been utilized in resource recovery, the remaining wastes are deemed non-recyclable and are buried in landfills. According to a research article, every citizen contributes 0.6kg to refuse collection per day and 0.23kg is sent to landfills, as of the year 2000 (Tanaka et al., 2005). This considerable reduction can be attributed to the high recycling efforts, which I have outlined previously. As seen in Diagram 1, ever since the Container and Packaging Recycling Law was enacted in 1997, the amount of landfilled waste has spotted a declining trend despite the increasing amount of municipal waste collected.

Diagram 1: Amount of municipal waste designated for landfills (Source: Tanaka et al., 2005)

A breakdown of landfill waste in year 2000 reveals that 17% is residue from recycling or material recovery, 54% is incineration residue and 29% are untreated waste (ibid.). Since landfill waste are slowly degraded underground, environmental risks such as leachate leak and release of landfill gas must be prevented. According to the Solid Waste Management Law since it was passed in year 1971, all landfills must meet the Guidelines for Municipal Solid Waste Landfill set by authorities, in order to receive a subsidy that covers a quarter of the landfill construction cost (ibid.). Multi-barrier protectors must be included in landfill design (see Diagram 2) and there should be at least 50cm thick of soil cover to prevent infestation of flies and vermins.

Diagram 2: Multi-barrier design of landfill (Source: Tanaka et al., 2005)

As of today, there are 200 landfill sites in Japan most of which are situated in mountainous areas, away from the public. The strategic selection for remote areas was to reduce the public’s NIMBY (not in my backyard) reaction and to prevent landfill leaks to surrounding residential sites (Tanaka et al., 2005). However, there is one famous landfill site located near the city of Tokyo, the Tokyo Bay landfill. The landfill site is divided into 23 wards and has received 12.3million tons of garbage in 15 years, from 1973 till 1987 (Hashida, 2014). Wise utilization of the landfill can be seen whereby a pipeline collecting methane gas from the landfill is linked to a nearby power plant. Ambitious plans to convert this Island of Garbage (Kirby, 2011) into an entertainment site with golf links and marine park is in progress. Japan can expect the opening of a Sea Forest Marine Park, or Umi-no-mari, by year 2016 (see video below). This marine park cost about $54 million dollars and will be decorated with more than 480,000 young trees. The government plans to use this 88 hectares marine park to educate the public about waste problem in the country and develop a more recycle-oriented society (Hashida, 2014). To boost publicity, it will also be a venue for the cross-country competition of 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Using the Sea Forest Marine Park as an educational tool, the government seeks to abandon the NIMBY reaction of residents and get Japanese to come to terms with their consumption-oriented culture. From land waste, to landfill site and subsequently artificial land, waste has indeed become a resource for Japan. However, the landfills in Japan can result in an environmental catastrophe when a major earthquake strikes. This topic will be discussed in my next blog post, so keep watching on!

References

Kirby, Peter Wynn. Troubled Natures. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011. Print.

Tanaka, Nobutoshi, Yasumasa Tojo, and Toshihiko Matsuto. 'Past, Present, And Future Of MSW Landfills In Japan'. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management 7.2 (2005): 104-111. Web. Retrieved from http://wastegr2-er.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/home_old/publish/03.pdf

Hashida, Masaki. 'Island Of Trash In Tokyo Bay Transforming Into Forested Olympic Venue'. The Asahi Shimbun 2014. Web. Retrieved from http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201407250015

Japan’s Recycling Success (Part 2): Glass and Electronic Waste

Glass is recycled in two ways, returnable or one-way system. Returnable system is the direct exchange of used bottle with bottle collectors. This is less frequent today as there is no standardized bottle size and type across all beverage companies (Edahiro, 2004). Reusing glass bottles is thus impractical as each bottle type is more brand specific. Hence, most glass bottles (and other glass waste) today are crushed and processed into cullets. Only transparent and brown colored glass, for which 80% of total glass wastes are, can be processed into glass cullets. The glass cullets are heated under high temperature to form supersol, a new material that is applicable in lots of civil engineering works. For example, supersol is used in road pavements, tree planting and even as a soil conditioner. The versatility of supersol is depicted in Video 1.

Video 1: Glass Recycling into Supersol material

Another category of recyclables is home appliances. The 4 types of products that are covered in the Home Recycling Law are air conditioners, televisions, refrigerators and washing machines. Since the law was enacted, the amount of waste collected in this category has been rising (see Diagram 1). Collected appliance waste will be manually dismantled in a factory to retrieve usable metal (eg iron, aluminium and copper) and plastic parts for recycling (see Diagram 2). During the process, hazardous substances, such as chlorofluorocarbons from refrigerators, might be released. Careful treatment of such contaminants is then done on-site before it is sent for proper disposal, usually to landfills. For an overview of the recycling process, look at Diagram 3 and Video 2 below. 

Diagram 1: Amount of collected home appliance waste (Source: Ministry of the Environment, 2012)

Diagram 2: Breakdown of recycled materials from appliance waste (Source: Ministry of the Environment, 2012)

Diagram 3: Overview of recycling home appliance waste (Source: Ministry of the Environment, 2012) 

Video 2: Recycling home appliance waste

Since home appliance is a kind of electronic product, the high complexity of the appliance waste would require a lot of manpower for sorting. Recycling is thus costly in this category. Nonetheless, appliance producers have to bear the cost because they have an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which was included in the Home Recycling Law. EPR notes that appliance producers are responsible for the item from cradle-to-grave, or the entire lifespan of the product. Hence, producers will be motivated to design more environmentally-friendly products and maximize recycling rate to its fullest. When companies infuse green designs into products, lesser materials might be needed and thus lesser waste will be generated. In my opinion, this EPR is a bold step taken by the government and reflects their commitment to reduce waste at source. By placing the waste management responsibility on producers, companies might be deterred from investing in Japan. Nonetheless, it is a very effective tool in treating the root cause of unnecessary pollution.

References

Edahiro, Junko. 'REUSABLE GLASS BOTTLES IN JAPAN｜JFS Japan For Sustainability'. JFS Japan for Sustainability. N.p., 2004. Web. Retrieved from http://www.japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id027782.html

Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan,. ‘Solid Waste Management and Recycling Technology of Japan'. N.p., 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://www.env.go.jp/en/recycle/smcs/attach/swmrt.pdf