The answer must not to be too simple for such a big issue that human beings wrap to the world. But there is a village of Kamikatsu sits among verdant rice fields and mountainous forest on the Western Japanese island of Shikoku with less that 1,700 residents.
The village had given thought to processing its waste for decades either burning it or burying it in the ground. After failing a few different approach the village rethink its strategy to become a zero-waste town by 2020.
Kamikatsu’s zero-waste journey started two decades ago that they were using a incinerator for extermination their wastes. But it was out of used by the central government because of harmful dioxins it released into the air.
After that the village had to think again the solve problem they have. They tried to shift the waste to other municipalities but it was expensive solution for such a small economy.
After a few fails later the village has decide to plough its efforts into reducing as much as waste possible thus the Zero Waste Academy was founded by leading Akira Sakano. Idea of the academy also the approach is quite simple: waste gets separated into categories to reuse, to recycle and to reduce.
Image: REUTERS/Ognen Teofilovski
Image: Zero Waste Academy
Sakano’s idea about the issue goes well beyond that the governments plan. According to her the rubbish is separated into the at least 45 categories for one situation. At the top level, food waste, metals, paper, plastics, glass bottles, food trays, furniture and machines all get separated.
With using this method there are many subcategories, so metal will get separated into aluminum, steel and iron, or paper gets separated into newspaper , cardboard, paper carton with coated aluminum, hard paper tubes, paper cups and shredded paper.
In this year Sakano gives a speech at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting at Davos so she explained her approach with these words:“By doing this level segregation, we can actually turn it over to the recycler knowing that they will treat it as a high quality resource”.
Also she believes it would be simple to replace the idea globally. “The specific elements of what we have is very much dedicated to our location and geography. But how the community is build and basic idea of how you can move towards zero waste can be copied anywhere, ” she says.
The major problem with waste is that people rarely have to think about what happens to it or where it goes because it is out of sight for this reason out of mind.
At the Zero Waste Academy people can see where it goes, what it will turn into, how much it costs to do thus it makes people consider. Sakano ruefully admits that their target %100 zero waste will not be possible without the contribution of bigger system and wider stakeholders.
She believes it’s time to start pressuring others to contribute. “ Our target of 100% cannot be achieved while manufacturers continue to use non recyclable products,” she says. Sakano’s biggest dream is to see the programme replicated on global scale. According to her 80-90% progress towards zero waste is achievable if people enthusiastic about the issue.
Image: Zero Waste Academy
