Shibushi City in Kagoshima is best recycling city in Japan for three years running
Of all councils designated as cities (which can have anything between 10,000 and 3.5 million people) in Japan, the City of Shibushi (34,000) in Kagoshima on Kyushu has been named as achieving the highest recycling rate in Japan, and this for three years running. Its current rate of recyclable materials out of all waste is 74%, and it aims to bring this even higher.
It all goes back to 1998, when it was estimated that the landfill sites the city was using were going to reach capacity within the next 10 years. A proposal for a large-scale incinerator was considered, but given the high up-front investment needed as well as continuous running costs during a time when local authorities where already experiencing severe financial difficulties combined with a growing awareness of climate change issues, a decision was made to rather try and go down the route of decreasing the amount of waste to be land filled drastically, ie up the recycling stakes.
This required the active participation of citizens in separating their waste, and it took a lot of effort by the administration to get everybody on board. The current Mayor, Mr Shuichi Honda, who has been in post since 2002, when the city was formed through a merger of three neighbouring towns, praises the efforts of his officials, who he says were very forward-thinking and environmentally conscious, in going the extra mile to talk to neighbourhood groups and everybody involved.
From 2005, household waste had to be separated into 28 different categories. Every household would receive a booklet explaining the system and when and how to dispose of the rubbish. Furthermore, in each neighbourhood ‘recycling support groups’ were set up to provide assistance to elderly people or others, who had difficulties coping on their own. As a result, the city attained the title of highest recycling city from 2007, and has stayed there for the past three years.
As result, not only has the waste disposed of in landfill decreased by 80%, which means that the landfill sites are now estimated to last another 30 years, but the cost of waste disposal per person has also fallen below the average of Japan.
The proclaimed goal is to reach 90 to 95% recycling rate. The mayor estimates that by getting business on board – where in many cases no recycling is taking place – 80% is immediately attainable; and by tackling such issues as the recycling of nappies, the 90% rate may not be that far off.
Shibushi is also sharing its knowledge and experience internationally, by participating in projects dealing with waste problems in Fiji.
