The reason why we have regional differences on refuse separation in Japan

When I live in Australia, I threw all the rubbishes mixed up all together away into the bin for refuse collecting vehicle. So I didn’t care the type of rubbish to throw away every day whenever I throw rubbish into a bin and left the after-collecting-rubbish treatment to a waste service company.

It is quite standard refuse disposal system in western countries. Not dividing rubbishes into its material type is a big advantage for people to save time when throwing rubbishes.
It was really useful system for me who had lived in Japan that has a lot of rules about rubbish treatment.

For example, when you want to throw away plastic bottle, you need to remove label out of bottle as often as you throw. Basically whenever you throw rubbish, you need to divide plastic and burnable materials. It is really troublesome and you don’t get used to this custom unless you know how convenience and simple your country’s refuse disposal system is.

I have to talk about why you need to sort garbage by its materials. This has something to do with the width of Japan. To begin with, Japan has a policy to use incinerator plant and landfill for as long as possible to allocate rubbishes to limited landfill. Because Japan is such a narrow country, the city where population concentrates like Tokyo area reclaim the foreshore with rubbishes.

Even though Japan is a small island country, mountainous regions cover 75% of Japan’s total land mass and woods regions cover 67% of Japan’s total land mass. City function and agriculture is prioritized to be placed in flat area so that the place which can be allocated for landfill is much more limited in Japan

Nowadays, the total land allocated to landfill is 0.5% of Japan. The more rubbishes increase, the more difficult it is to find a place to throw away. No matter how much places there are in the sea, using foreshore area too much affects marine ecosystem.

So we have come to think about how to reduce rubbishes. Sorting rubbishes by its materials is quite reasonable to build sustainable ecosystem to recycle and reduce rubbishes.

Refuse separation method is different from each municipality

Refuse separation method for general household is different from each municipality. Basically there are some common points on refuse separation rules in each region like non-flammable rubbish, burnable rubbish , empty can ,empty plastic bottle and empty glass bottle need to be separated anywhere in Japan.

However, there are some municipalities that require to sort rubbishes in a more detailed manner, which makes you feel stupidly troublesome.

There is Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law in the background of the difference of refuse separation rules by each municipality. Article 6 of this law says ” each municipality must uniquely make out a refuse separation plan for non-industrial waste in accordance with municipal waste management program”. In short, refuge separation rules leave handling to the discretion of each municipality which adopts most appropriate method in accordance with refuse problem in the region.

Seperating materials in accordance with Containers and Packaging Recycling Law

We have Containers and Packaging Recycling Law which is one of laws on refuse separation established in 1977. The following materials need to be separated in accordance with this law.

• Glass containers
• Plastic bottles
• Paper containers
• Plastic containers
• Steel cans
• Aluminum cans
• Milk Carton ( whose materials don’t contain aluminum)
• Cardboard

These materials occupy 20 to 30% of total rubbishes of general household and are recycable. Municipalities call for resident’s cooperation to recycle these materials.

Municipality setting more detailed rules on refuse separation

Chiba-shi

Paper and plastic refuse separation rules differ depending on the products

Plastic bottle	Plastic bottle body is sorted as “Plastic Bottle” A bottle cap is sorted as “burnable refuse”
Paper	Toilet paper roll core, memo pad, candy box and tissue paper box are sorted as “recyclable refuse”. Non-water-soluble paper (plastic wrap core and paper cup), paper which has stain and smell of foods like pizza and cake boxes are sorted as “burnable refuse”.
Plastic	Foldable refuses like mayonnaise tube is sorted as burnable refuse Breakable refuses when you fold it like rulers and ballpoint pen is sorted as non-burnable refuse
Cell batteries	This is harmful refuse and not mixed with other waste ( for example, not being put in the same bag with spray can)

Minamata-shi

Minamata-shi has 21 categories for refuse separation.

Glass bottle	Returnable bottles Miscellaneous bottles(transparent bottles) Miscellaneous bottles (Brown bottles) Miscellaneous bottles (other color bottles)
Paper	Newspaper, Flyer Cardboard Magazine, other paper products (paper package)
Can	Alminium can Steel can
Plastic bottle	Plastic bottle body Plastic bottle cap
Electricity	Light bulb, fluorescent light Cell batteries Electrical cords Small electrical appliances
Plastic container
fabric
Food oil
Food scraps
Burnable refuse
Large refuse

Returnable bottles are like Soy souce bottles, beer bottles, and bottles used for other alcohole products, which has ®️mark on its surface. These can be resued after washing inside. However, broken one is sorted as miscellaneous bottles.

On the other hand, miscellaneous bottles are reused after processing and also used for materials of glass art craft. Food oil will be reused for soup and biodiesel.

Tokushima, Kamikatsu-cho

Minamata-shi has 34 categories for refuse separation.

Glass bottle	Returnable bottles Transparent bottles Brown bottles Other color bottles
Paper	Newspaper, Flyer (bound up with string) Cardboard(bound up with string) Magazine, other paper products ((bound up with string) Milk box (cut open)
Can	Alminium can Steel can Spray can (make sure it’s empty and make a hole ) Metal cap (wash with water)
Plastic bottle	Plastic bottle body (remove label) Plastic bottle cap
Electricity	Light bulb, fluorescent light (broken one need to be separated from others) Cell batteries Electrical cords Small electrical appliances
Plastic container
fabric	Old fabric, blanket (these should be dried and put in a transparent bag) Carpet, Futon

The following materials also need to be separated (disposable chopsticks, napkin, paper diaper, lighter, waste oil, plastic containers, styrofoam)

Kamikatsu-cho collects waste tires and car batteris on every sunday.
It calls for resident’s cooperation to use food scraps as compost of kitchen garden as much as possible.

The reason why there is regional differences on refuse separation

In Kamikatsu-cho, Tokushima prefecture, disposable chopsticks and paper diaper need to be separated individually apart from burnable refuses. On the other hand, there is a municipality that treats plastic refuse as burnable refuse. What is the difference between both two cases?

A region that treats plastic and white tray as burnable refuse has background that there is high temperature processing incinerator system which keeps harmful gas from burning these materials and use this heat energy to generate electricity.

In contrast, a region that has low quality incinerator system tends to separate refuses by its materials in a more detailed manner.

In addition, unrban area that population concentrates has inevitably a lot of refuses. Seperated refuses is collected by outsourced agent contracting with the municipality.
For that reason, to recycle refuges taking too much costs which pressure government finances. So refuses separation rules are more easy than local regions.

At any rate, the most important thing is to be conscience of cleanliness of the town you live in. Wherever you live in Japan, you should pay more attention not to put out a lot of refuses and to think out whether refuses can be recycled in your living.