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Japan Recycles: Forget about 3- Sorts, How about 10?

In smaller Japanese communities, trash sorting options can jump to more than 40, while major cities settle for about ten. As part of a national drive to reduce waste and increase recycling, cities in Japan like Yokohama recently doubled the number of trash sorting categories to 10. New options include small metals, used cloth and much more. Smaller towns – Kamikatsu (population 2,200) in the moutains of Shikoku now have 44 categories. In land scarce Japan, up to 80% of garbage is incinerated so the extra sorts are worth the cost. “Sorting trash is not necessarily more expensive than incineration,” explains HIdeki Kidoshshi, a garbage researcher at the Center for the Strategy of Emergence at the Japan Building Institute. “In Japan, sorting and recycling will make further progress.”Yokohama has set a goal to reduce incineration by 30% in five years, while Kamikatsu proposes to eliminate garbage by 2020 – raising its recycling rate to 80% in the last four years. Each household now has a subsidized garbage disposal unit that recycles raw garbage into compost. An informal group of inspectors has been formed in many cities to promote compliance. They drive around their neighborhoods, looking for mis-sorted trash, leaving such […]

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Brazil Sets Sights for Organic Agriculture

At BioFach America Latina, Latin America’s largest organic agriculture trade fair (November 16-18, 2005), Brazilian Minister of Agriculture Roberto Rodrigues outlined goals of the Brazilian government to dramatically increase organic production and to establish a national organic seal. The Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (APEX) also launched a project called the Brazil Organics Project to promote and enhance the export of organic products.As part of his keynote speech, Rodrigues announced the establishment of a government seal which would guarantee the origin and quality of organic agricultural products, placing Brazil in a competitive position to access international markets. Rodrigues said that the government seal will help to facilitate the identification of organic products that currently are certified by private standards. “In next the three to four months we will finalize the definition of the regulation and, therefore, the seal and other instruments for the sector,” he said. Organic agriculture in Brazil represents less than 3% of total agricultural production in the country. “There is enormous room for growth (in the organic sector), and we intend to achieve 20% organic in next the five to six years, stimulated mainly by small producers.” In addition, the Brazilian Export Promotion Agency (APEX) has invested over […]

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