A Japan Without Gomi

[GuyJean]

Japan as Ground Zero for No-Waste Lifestyle



Three environmental models: Toyota's Prius factory, an electronics recycler, and a village that recycles 80 percent of its trash.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1216/p01s04-woap.html

This is a town singularly focused on banishing waste – all waste – by 2020. The 2,000 people of Kamikatsu have dispensed with public trash bins. They set up a Zero Waste Academy to act as a monitor. The town dump has become a sort of outdoor filing cabinet, embracing 34 categories of trash – from batteries to fluorescent lights to bottle caps.

Kamikatsu has probably pushed the recycling ethic as far as any community in the world. But it's just one small indicator of a national drive by Japan to position itself as a leader in the world's urgent quest to live greener.

The momentum cuts across a broad base – from individual recycling to factory efficiency to trading in electronic trash.

Just four decades ago, this small island nation had become an environmental cautionary tale, some of its cities synonymous with the high health costs of rapid postwar industrialization.

But the strengths that propelled Japan toward economic superpowerdom – efficient manufacturing and technological refinement among them – have also helped lay the foundation for a more energy efficient and less polluting society...

Is it just me, or is the title of the article a bit tasteless?

GJ

[james]

i thought for a second that gomi girl was leaving us!

my biggest complaint with japan isn't so much with efforts on how to handle waste, but as usual they're missing the forest for the trees and people are not directing efforts where they should - which is to stop producing so much %$!ing waste in the first place.

[Western All Stars]

my biggest complaint with japan isn't so much with efforts on how to handle waste, but as usual they're missing the forest for the trees and people are not directing efforts where they should - which is to stop producing so much %$!ing waste in the first place.

Exactly. Everytime I go to a bakery or department store I come home with 3 times the weight in garbage packaging than what I bought. Then when I try to reuse some of those plastic bags as gargage bags, the city says I can only use clear plastic bags, so I end up having to go to the store to buy clear plastic bags to throw away my other plastic bags.

The other day I saw a store selling special scissors for cutting the lids off of plastic bottles to recycle them. Think of how much pollution was created just making/selling the scissors vs. the benefits of recycling tiny plastic bottle caps.

[wuchan]

[GuyJean]

Not that the US is any better, but Japan seems forget the 'Reduce' in the '3 R's' song (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)..

This extends to energy. It's been beaten like a dead horse, but multi-pane windows and a little insulation could go a long way to 'reducing' energy costs.

I like the rooftop gardens and minimalist living style though. I guess that's how they contribute to reducing..

GJ

[Blah Pete]

I am in the process of becoming an un-fucked Gaijin. Needless to say say I am throwing out tons of junk after 18 years here. Every time I go to the supermarket to buy the 90L. size gomi bags only they try and wrap it in 2 plastic bags......

[james]

we live in a very old house, pre-war. our rather deep bathtub has a flue such that one can burn stuff underneath it. this is nice in theory, however what typically happens is that it's so cold in winter that any piping hot bath you draw is reduced to a tepid pool of water within a couple of hours (at most) unless you do in fact burn something.

the upside is that i can use our paper and cardboard garbage. i figure if it's going to get burnt anyway, that i might as well be the one to derive that energy. quite often, outside of winter, i can simply run the cold water and burn enough paper, cardboard and wood scraps to bring it up to bathing temps and then some. i've gotten numerous "free" baths from garbage.

[Samurai_Jerk]

we live in a very old house, pre-war. our rather deep bathtub has a flue such that one can burn stuff underneath it. this is nice in theory, however what typically happens is that it's so cold in winter that any piping hot bath you draw is reduced to a tepid pool of water within a couple of hours (at most) unless you do in fact burn something.

the upside is that i can use our paper and cardboard garbage. i figure if it's going to get burnt anyway, that i might as well be the one to derive that energy. quite often, outside of winter, i can simply run the cold water and burn enough paper, cardboard and wood scraps to bring it up to bathing temps and then some. i've gotten numerous "free" baths from garbage.

Jesus Christ, man. Why don't you join the 21st century?

[Mike Oxlong]

Cut the man some slack! He's outlined his dilemna before...