Tokyo's busy Shinjuku district symbolises the city's dense population and potential for pollution. However the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (headquarters pictured above right) is working hard to turn Tokyo society from one of mass consumption to mass recycling

Tokyo recycling
its big city image

text and photographs courtesy of Adrian Ahern

In the largest city of the world's second-largest economy, mass production and mass consumption are symbols of affluence and a way of life. To many, the bustling look and feel of Tokyo would seem to embody all that is industrious of a vibrant free-market system - and all that is wasteful.

But looks can be deceiving. Residents of this city of nearly 13 million are increasingly less likely to fit the stereotype of the modern, throwaway society.

A typical Tokyo homemaker regularly sorts recycling not merely into "paper and bottle" containers, but into 10, 12 or even more receptacles catering for everything from used batteries to old clothing and cosmetics.

A Tokyo student's school excursion may well be to the local tip, where landfill management is deemed as important to modern education as anything found in a museum.

Or take the example of a businessman employed in Japan's iconic electrical goods industry. Before he can sell the latest television, refrigerator or washing machine his company must arrange to collect, dismantle and recycle the customer's old product.

This Home Appliance Recycling Law, where manufacturers remain responsible for reusing their products, was enacted in 2001. A year earlier, Japan passed the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society. A raft of related legislation on packaging, construction and food waste has followed. In 2004, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) took no less than 65,000 of its citizens on tours of its primary landfill site.

Before this century's flurry of new laws and initiatives, TMG ran a major public relations campaign in the 1990s called "Tokyo Slim" - selling a civic message of waste reduction and responsibility. Within a decade, recycling in the 23 wards making up greater Tokyo had tripled.

More recent polls and surveys of Tokyo's people show an active involvement and interest in waste reduction and recycling that would be the envy of most world cities.

TMG acknowledges this success in its latest major environmental initiative launched last year. But the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Environmental White Paper pulls no punches in defining new and greater challenges ahead.

"We are facing a serious environmental crisis," writes Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara in the paper's introduction. "Frequent extreme weather and the continuing deterioration of global warming shows the earth's environment has begun to change for the worse. In Tokyo, one of the world's great cities established by modern civilization, there has been a strong indication of environmental threats..."

The White Paper sets ambitious goals to meet a "sustainability crisis" impacting on Tokyo. The city's population is growing, despite Japan's declining birthrate, and so too are its environmental challenges. Already there are nearly 6000 people per square kilometre in Tokyo (greater Sydney has just 346) while student and working commuters add 2.5 million people to Tokyo's population each business day.

Continuing to win the hearts and minds of these people is critical if Tokyo is to remain a desirable place to live. Recent history has shown its citizens are eager to turn their society of mass production and consumption into one of mass waste reduction and recycling. It is a major step forward in meeting the challenges of an uncertain future.

This is the first in a four-part series introducing environmental initiatives in Japan and the challenges that lie ahead for the world's second largest economy.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Environmental White Paper 2006 can be viewed at www.kankyo.metro.tokyo.jp