Disposing of the 400 million tons of industrial waste and 50 million tons of garbage the nation produces every year is not a laughing matter. Indeed, if nothing is done, the Japanese archipelago really could disappear under a mountain of garbage in the 21st century. Garbage has become such a headache for the government that many ministries and agencies have begun to call for the nation's transformation into a recycling society.
But is recycling really the solution to the problem? An examination of the issues raised by steel and plastic recycling suggests otherwise. The amount of steel in the nation now exceeds 1 billion tons. Japan has often been described as a resource-poor country, but if all the steel used in Japan is counted as a national resource, then the nation is resource-rich.
The nation now recycles about 80 percent of steel products. Unfortunately, this recycling creates other problems. The metal scrap salvaged from building frames and bridges inevitably contains impurities, and since it must be melted down, small quantities of dioxin are emitted during reprocessing. Though small in quantity, these emissions are a major source of dioxin in the environment, second only to the smoke produced by garbage incineration plants.
The nation produces 13 million tons of plastic annually. In spite of regulations that encourage recycling, only 20 percent of plastic bottles are recycled. Most plastic is thrown away. Ironically, the very qualities that make plastic a desirable industrial material - lightness, sturdiness, low cost, ease of processing, and durability - hinder its recycling. Discarded plastic products tend to be bulky and are expensive to recover and transport. On the other hand, they are not biodegradable when buried in garbage dumps and emit dioxin when burned.
While recycling must be encouraged, it is not a magic bullet. As we tackle the garbage problem to protect the environment and conserve energy, our first priority should be to reduce garbage output. And our second option should be to increase reusage of products. Recycling should be our last choice.
To boost reusage rates, we need to make products and parts from durable and long-lasting materials. Plastic happens to be a material with ideal characteristics for reuse. But in order to reuse the plastic components from automobiles, electrical appliances, computers, and other products, they need to be consciously designed with reuse in mind. German designers have begun to emphasize the importance of reusing plastic and have already achieved a reuse rate of 72 percent for some types of products.
Our Tokugawa ancestors were efficient users and reusers of resources. Human waste was sold as fertilizer and ash from fireplaces was collected by ash merchants and sold to farmers (as fertilizer) and to dyers and papermakers. Since few resources were wasted, less garbage was produced.
After Japan opened up to the world during the Meiji Period, resources became more abundant and we began to burn and bury more of our garbage. The end result has been more environmental pollution and a shortage of landfill sites. As a first step toward solving our garbage problem, we will have to amend the waste-disposal law that is currently on the books because it discourages reuse and recycling by defining garbage too broadly.
From the Mainichi Shimbun, Aug. 22, 1999
Mainichi
Daily News
