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TIME: Almanac 1990s
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1994-03-25
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<text id=89TT0034>
<title>
Jan. 02, 1989: Japan Gives Trash A Second Chance
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
Jan. 02, 1989 Planet Of The Year:Endangered Earth
</history>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
PLANET OF THE YEAR, Page 47
The Good News: Japan Gives Trash a Second Chance
</hdr><body>
<p> With a barely audible whoosh, the large doors at the
entrance open to a spacious glass-walled hall filled with lush
green plants and the soothing sound of a trickling miniature
waterfall. But the sleek municipal building in Machida, a
bustling city in central Japan, is not a pristine botanical
garden. The enticing entrance is merely the facade of a $65
million facility built to handle a dirty job: recycling the
wastes of the city's 340,000 residents. "We collect roughly
100,000 tons of garbage a year and convert it back into
valuable materials," says a smiling Kenichi Usui, a city
waste-management official. He has good reason to be boastful.
Japan, which is fast becoming the world's premier industrial
power, is also in the forefront of effective waste management.
</p>
<p> The country has made "waste not, want not" a national
policy. Last year 50% of Japan's wastepaper, 55% of its glass
bottles and 66% of its beverage and food cans were recycled.
Much of the remaining trash was turned into fertilizers, fuel
gases and recycled metals.
</p>
<p> Behind the success are Japan's recycling technology and
systematic garbage collection. The Machida plant can deal with
almost any category of recyclable refuse: burnables,
nonburnables, bottles, cans, durables such as furniture and
refrigerators, and "harmfuls" like batteries. Depending on
their category, the castoffs are filtered, burned, crushed or
otherwise treated on their way to becoming reusable materials.
Steel scrap is separated from other garbage by huge magnets.
Much of the recycling is computer-controlled: only 45 people
work in shifts to run the round-the-clock operation.
</p>
<p> Prudent waste management would not be possible without the
disciplined cooperation of the Japanese people. Before putting
out their garbage, they religiously follow such requirements as
separating bottles from cans and burnables like paper from
nonburnables such as glass and hard plastic. People who want
quick disposal of old refrigerators or TV sets need only make a
phone call to the sanitation department for a special pickup.
Observes Yumimaru Nakada, a senior official in Tokyo's public
sanitation bureau: "Living in a crowded situation, the Japanese
have come to learn that garbage recycling is no laughing
matter."
</p>
<p> And it certainly pays to recycle. From 100,000 tons of
typical Japanese garbage comes enough wood pulp to make a roll
of toilet paper that would wrap around the earth ten times.
</p>
</body></article>
</text>