Survey Ranks Kamakura as Top Japanese City in Waste Recycling for 4th Straight Year,

According to a survey on general (non-industrial) waste disposal nationwide during fiscal 2007 -- released on September 14, 2009, by Japan's Ministry of the Environment -- the recycling rate in the city of Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, was 47.6 percent, ranking it first for the fourth straight year among municipalities with populations over 100,000 and under 500,000. Kamakura has been actively working on recycling materials since its 1996 launch of a project to reduce its waste by half, and it is aiming to achieve a 70-percent recycling rate by 2015.

Among the other survey findings, the total 2007 volume of non-industrial waste in Japan was 50.82 million tons, a decrease of 2.3 percent from the previous year, that the amount of waste per capita per day decreased to 1,089 grams, down 2.4 percent, and that the amount of final disposal to landfills decreased by 6.8 percent. At the same time, the recycled waste volume and recycling rate steadily increased.

Also, in contrast to the average recycling rate of 20.3 percent nationwide in Japan, the town of Osaki, Kagoshima Prefecture, had the highest, at 81.4 percent, from among municipalities with populations under 100,000, and the city of Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Prefecture, had the highest recycling rate, 29.2 percent, among municipalities with populations over 500,000.

The lowest amount of waste disposed per capita per day was 295.8 grams, in the village of Sanagochi, Tokushima Prefecture, among municipalities with population under 100,000; 744.5 grams in the city of Uruma, Okinawa Prefecture, among municipalities with over 100,000 and under 500,000 people; and 849.2 grams in the city of Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, among municipalities of over 500,000.

Kamakura City official website
http://www.city.kamakura.kanagawa.jp/foreign01_english/

Posted: 2010/01/20 06:00:15 AM