Government decisions: recycling rubbish

Teacher note

• The Claw - and the environment
• Governments have choices

Governments put different emphases on policies – influenced by their and electors’ known priorities, size, resources and other considerations.

Consider how Sakai City makes its rubbish recycling happen, and how it deals with school lunch box dilemmas. Consider how New Zealand communities deal with the same issues.

Rubbish is a core local government service in Kansai and New Zealand.

Start with the waste from food, and its packaging. There are choices, bury some or all of it in landfills, separate it, reuse it one way or another – turn it into energy.

Share experts and community opinion and attitudes about what to do.

Sakai “Clean”, the city rubbish and recycling service, tells local elementary school children and international visitors their main focus is on reduction of rubbish, and promotion of the four Rs: Refuse (e.g. don’t accept plastic bags from the supermarket if you don’t need them), Reduce (e.g. fill up your notebook, don’t waste pages), Reuse and Recycle

Sakai’s educational message is that resources will disappear if people don’t return them.

Local government can influence how well the four Rs work, including by deposits policies for bottles, and arrange for households to separate their rubbish into categories for recycling.

In Sakai children go in groups to collect magazines and newspapers – but not containers - from houses, take them back to the recycle centre, and receive money for their group activities.

Economic growth may mean more rubbish.

Leadership in waste management benefits society by producing less rubbish, produces more energy, and can even help in developing exports.

There are various ways to educate people to understand challenges we face with food and with rubbish, health and environment, and what governments can and cannot do

“Sakai Clean centre”, its “Super Waste to Energy System” – with its commitment to the four Rs – illustrates how local government can provide services that are close to the people

Sakai Mayor Hideo Hataya says the city wanted to use untapped energy sources in a constructive way, so planned the incineration plant to use the heat which is generated from incinerating garbage as energy to drive other systems. The computer controlled generation plant produces steam and natural gas, which drive turbines.

The energy from Sakai Clean helps power a local swimming pool and sports facility provided by local government.

Staffs of Sakai Clean take students on tours of their plant, and talk to them about ways to reduce and recycle rubbish.

The way Sakai Clean is organised, the way it turns waste into energy and the way it helps meet local needs might be worth a look by people from other communities. Some foreign officials do take a look at Sakai Clean to see what they can learn.

With concern for the global environment growing worldwide, the call is for wise and efficient utilisation of our global resources says Sakai Mayor Hataya.

The Claw - and the environment

The claw inside Sakai Clean provides a graphic reminder – today’s drink is tomorrow’s rubbish!

Educators give their own reminders. Children are told how much toilet paper is made from how many milk packs.

The “Sakai Clean” Educational Centre explains Sakai’s rubbish management and power generation activities to elementary school children.

Sakai Clean Centre’s educator, Mr Miki:The main focus is on reduction of rubbish, and promotes the four Rs.
Our educational message is that resources will disappear if people don’t return them.

Governments have choices

How vigorously should local government they push the conservation message?

Mr Miki favours reinstatement of a deposits policy for bottles – why is this still a question locally?
But Sakai households do separate their rubbish into categories for recycling.
Cans and bottles are separated from normal rubbish. Children go in groups to collect magazines and newspapers from houses, take them back to the recycle centre, and receive money for their group activities.
The electric power generation in the Sakai “Clean”plant is used in the plant next door – the factory and the sports facility, and rest is provided to a Kansai power grid operation.

Sakai Ciy Hall’s Takeaki Shibuya notes that waste management specialists visit the Sakai “Clean” facility. Officials presume visitors came here from New Zealand early in its ten year life.

There is an absence of pollution from the facility – which officials say performs to high world standards. What can Mr Miki tell us about transferring the Sakai “Clean” technology?

Are more plants planned?
Rubbish volumes are not increasing.

A good sign education is working. But economic growth may mean more rubbish.
That is possible.

Kuboto built this plant – do they export them - to China, to NZ? Probably could.

If Japan is a leader in waste management it benefits society by producing less rubbish., produces more energy, exports
This type of company can take its technology overseas. It’s not my department!

Can aluminum be recycled by you, or others, and what is made from i?
City Council collects, but corporations reuse.

There are cartoons on the wall of Sakai “Clean, by a professor whose pen name is “High Noon”, showing rubbish management attitudes.

Cartoons carry the idea of educating people to understand challenges we face with food and with rubbish, health and environment, and what governments can and cannot do

From Anthony Haas, Asia Pacific Economic News service

18 March 2007

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