The Japanese Ministry of the Environment, on March 1, 2004, released the results of a survey on general waste discharged and disposed in fiscal 2001. The total amount decreased by 0.5 percent from the previous year to 52.1 million tons, while the amount of waste per capita was 1,124 grams per day.

The recycling rate was 15.0 percent, 0.7 percentage points higher than the previous year. The amount of final disposal decreased to 9.95 million tons from 10.51 million tons and the direct landfill disposal rate also declined to 5.3 percent from 5.9 percent of total waste.

There were 1,680 incineration plants nationwide with a daily handling capacity of 202,733 tons at the end of fiscal 2001. Among them 1,090 plants used waste heat, while 236 had power generation facilities with a total generation capacity of 1,246,000 kilowatts. The landfill sites had an average remaining life of 12.5 years, almost unchanged from the previous year.

An increasing number of municipalities have started charging for waste disposal. Among them, 2,604 municipalities, 80 percent of the total, charged for household waste and 2,862 for waste from businesses (2,535 and 2,833 respectively in the previous year).



Posted: 2004/06/10 01:27:19 PM
Japanese version

TAG Energy , Government , Local government , Material reduction , NGO/Citizen