Residents of the small Japanese town of Kamikatsu sort their household waste into 34 different recycling boxes. They currently recycle 80% of their rubbish, and are aiming to reduce waste disposal by incineration or landfill to zero by 2020, leading the way in adopting a more energy efficient and less polluting lifestyle. You can see more on Kamikatsu in this BBC news report.
The concept of ‘zero waste‘ is based on the understanding that all the materials we use are resources, and only become waste due to bad design or poor management. By redesigning products and changing the way we dispose of what we don’t need, the problem of ‘waste’ ceases to exist, because everything becomes a resource to be reused or recycled.
MyZeroWaste.com is a blog by a UK family working to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill. You can see how they dramatically reduce their rubbish in ‘Our bin goes on a crash diet and loses nearly 10kg in one week!’.
It’s really surprising just how much can be reused or recycled if you are prepared to make an effort!
Posted under educational resources, waste
