Residents of the remote Kamikatsu village, located on the Japanese island of Sekuku, have spent most of the past two decades reusing, recycling and minimizing waste, all united to achieve the goal of ending their dependence on incinerators and landfills, as the world struggles to tackle the climate change crisis and plastic waste.
Although Kamekatsu, which is about an hour's drive from its closest city, Tokushima, and 370 miles from Tokyo, has not completely disposed of waste, its heroic efforts have inspired many other communities in Japan to meet the challenge of reducing waste to zero.
Household waste must be separated into about 45 items, before being transferred to the collection center, where volunteers working at the center make sure that each material will go to its place. As for the materials that are still in good condition, they are sent to the "Koro Koro" warehouse for recycling, where the residents can provide or take certain materials, most of them clothes, pottery, and decorations, for free.
Corona epidemic
Even the spread of the Corona epidemic did not hinder the village's efforts to reduce waste to almost zero, as there are no self-isolation orders to stop the spread of Corona in that part of Japan.
In 2000, the village was forced to change the way waste is managed, when a new law on carbon dioxide emissions was issued, forcing it to shut down two waste incinerators. This shrinking village, with its aging population, did not have the money to build new crematoriums or transport waste to other facilities. The only option was to reduce the amount of waste and recycle many materials as quickly as possible. After three years, Kamikatsu became the first place in Japan to reduce its waste to zero.
There are complaints that recycling is a tiring issue for this village of 1,500 people, who have found themselves forced to classify waste into large categories, turn food waste into compost, wash bags, and plastic bottles to be recycled again. "You will always find unhelpful people on any project at the community level," says the non-profit president of the "zero-waste academy", which was established in 2005 in the village of Kamikatsu, Akira Sakanu. Adding that the academy focused all its energy on 80% of the population who support the project, and who work to persuade the skeptics.
Because of the difficulty in reducing consumption, most of the villagers accepted the recycling system, and as a result, the village was able to keep most of its waste away from the incinerators and landfill.
In FY16, Kamikatsu Village recycled 81% of the waste it produced, compared to the national average in Japan, which is only 20%. A small number of materials proved impossible to recycle, and included: leather shoes, diapers, and other health products, so they are sent to an incinerator outside the village. This village was able to start tackling the growing plastic waste problem, which makes up most of the waste, before the rest of the country.
The second product
Japan is the second producer of plastic waste after the United States. The Japanese consume about 30 billion plastic shopping bags annually. Japan has been shipping 1.5 million tons of plastic waste annually to China, until Beijing banned this import in 2017.
Not all villagers are convinced that this project can be copied easily elsewhere. "We succeeded, because the population here is only 1500," Japanese Nuku Yokomaya, who came to Kamikatsu two years ago from Koyoto, told AFP, as zero points approached last year. In big cities and a larger population, this will be difficult. ”
- In FY16, Kamikatsu Village managed to recycle 81% of the waste it produced.
Domestic waste must be separated into about 45 items before being transported to the collection center, where volunteers working at the center make sure that each material will go to its place.