What Happens to Garbage in Japan

hello world I feel like it's common knowledge that Japan has some strict sorting rules around waste collection cities will give up multi-page booklets with all the rules it also seems like it's one of those things that foreigners always have trouble with when starting to live in Japan bottles need to be washed out caps taken off labels separated newspapers magazines tied up into nice bundles cans and glass bottles each go into their own collection bin but after all is said and done what happens to it all while the first thing to know is that waste collection is managed by municipalities not the central government so what happens in one city can be very different from what happens in another you might have heard the example where this one town in Japan recycles 81 of its waste it's true but that's a very special exception not the rule I went to the city of saga in the southern part of Japan to see how they managed their waste a lot of it is quite similar to what other cities do across the country however do keep in mind that this is not what every Japanese city does I'll try to point out the things that may not be done everywhere else one of those things is a separation of plastic I made a whole video about plastic so if you want to Deep dive into that check that out but to summarize in Japan there's only two real plastic categories used for households pet and Puda pet as in pet bottles like those found in drink vending machines and puta as in as in plastic Buddha is a catch-all category for all Plastics that are not pet in Saga all Pura is put in the burnable garbage category it's not separated out from mechanical or chemical recycling instead it's put into the regular garbage stream and is thermally recycled what in the world is thermally recycled it means burning waste to create energy I'll be straight up it seems like people really love this technology or they hate it but before I get into that let's explain what actually happens ways to separate it into different categories with some items going into a recycling stream and others going into the burning stream which like I said is called thermally recycling in order to separate out the various items Saga has their own plastic bags that residents have to purchase they can be quite helpful as they have lists of what's accepted on the bags themselves while editing I noticed that they had a spot for the name of the collection area as well as a name for the individual on each bag I wondered why this was this started from a residence request who had neighbors who weren't separating waste correctly a lot of areas in Japan have waste collection groups that comprise of 5 10 or 20 households so this could help a group like that figure out who was having trouble sorting their waste residents aren't required to put their names on the bags but it is something that a waste collection group could ask their members to do the these items that are part of the non-burnable stream need to be hand sorted by workers these may be dangerous because they're sharp like knives scissors and razor blades are dangerous because they may explode like aerosol cans are dangerous because they would release toxic chemicals like batteries the workers will separate out items that can be recycled and those that can be burned in the incinerator oversized items like Furniture can be brought to the special machine that'll crush it and then throw it into the big waste kit the regular garbage trucks will pull in throughout the day and dump their waste into the pit as well so at this waste facility they don't know what kind of waste will be brought in and in what volumes they have some ideas based on the season like around New Year's there will be a lot of cleaning so volumes will be higher but in general the mix of what's in the pit at any given moment is uncertain to achieve optimal efficiency you need a steady stream of stuff to burn and you need to make sure that it all Burns at an ideal temperature to get that burning temperature correct incineration facilities can use oil since plastic is made from oil Saga didn't separate its put up plastic from its waste since it can use that instead of virgin oil but there's a new law called the act of promotion of resource circulation for Plastics so Saga is preparing to separate its Plastics from the burnable garbage category it doesn't mean that they won't continue to burn plastic in their waste incineration facility but rather they have more control over what gets burned and what doesn't right now they separate out pet bottles to be recycled in a different way in order to ensure even burning there's an operator for the giant Crane That mixes up all the incoming waste it's basically a large scale UFO catcher game waste is then moved into the furnace and burned the heat generated boils water that is then turned into steam which turns a turbine which generates electricity after the burn the volume of the waste is significantly reduced but there still is Ash that is left there are Air Pollution Control filters to make sure that the air being released is below environmental emission limits so what you see coming out of the stack is mostly water steam something that normally isn't captured is CO2 however this facility in Saga is the first attempt in the world to capture CO2 from an incineration facility is so what's going on is that they are capturing the CO2 not for environmental purposes but rather to use it to build the local economy around the plant it's only sold to nearby businesses by direct pipeline as it is cost efficient to do so even then the current setup is not profitable although the system only allows them to collect five percent of CO2 emitted they haven't been able to sell all their capacity yet I asked why they don't do carbon storage but there is no infrastructure in place to do so especially not profitably a country that is going to do large-scale carbon capture and storage is Norway where its largest waste energy plant plans to store 90 of its CO2 emissions into a rock formation three kilometers beneath the seabed of the North Sea besides CO2 there are other byproducts from the waste energy plant that come in handy like the heated steam left over after the burn this is piped into the pool and sports complex that is conveniently located right next door and the electricity also comes from the waste facility as well so depending on your definition of renewable energy this whole complex is mainly powered heated and cooled by renewable energy foreign goes into the heat exchanger there it transfers its heat to a separate set of pipes that will then Supply the sports complex with water that's 50 to 60 degrees Celsius the water that came from the plant is in a closed loop system so after being cooled down in the heat exchanger it returns to the plant to be heated up again repeating the cycle what really impressed me about this waste facility is that it's not in some super industrial area but rather it's built a community around it there are no funny smells outside and I don't think it'd be a bad place to live it's not smack dab in the middle of a residential area but it's also not far away either with the sports areas it's meant to be a place that people go to as part of a healthy life as a matter of fact this is something I noticed about other similar facilities around Japan in my Tokyo by bike video I rode by this incineration plant in edogawa there's a park next to it and even have a free foot bath you also find Care Homes schools a nice traffic Park and new public housing everything sounds ideal so what's the catch is there a catch this I don't know I want to State this out right that depending on what you read or who you listen to this whole thermal recycling business this whole waste energy business is either a huge greenwashing scam or a fantastic solution for dealing with waste here's some of the arguments for and against waste is diverted from other efforts like composting and recycling in order for waste energy plants to retain optimal efficiency you want to continuously run them with no stoppages this means you need enough stuff to burn so you're creating a demand for waste and won't be naturally incentivized to reduce the amount of waste generated by residents or to use that waste in other processes such as for composting or recycling in saga's case they do have recycling programs in place which is what the separation of waste into separate bags is about as well as the Sorting Center at the facility but would they be more aggressive in their plastic recycling efforts if the waste incineration plant didn't exist I think that's a fair assumption however a lot of the plastic thermally recycled in Saga either can't be recycled in a different way that doesn't create more CO2 or can't be alternatively recycled because the technology or facilities don't exist toxic chemicals are generated from the burn there's both Ash and steam that's created for the ash there are two types bottom mash and fly ash bottom ashes what falls down after the burn and is considered safe enough to go into a regular landfill you can use the bottom Ash as an ingredient in cement or even to create new land such as odaiba an artificial Island in Tokyo fly ash is collected as air pollutants are separated from the steam using the air pollution control system it removes the majority of pollutants so that what's released meets strict environmental standards the fly ash is considered toxic and if not properly handled is harmful to the environment in Japan it's chemically treated and then sent to a landfill CO2 is released versus landfilling incineration reduces greenhouse gases by eliminating methane gas emissions that would be generated in a standard landfill however in comparison to burning oil natural gas are coal more CO2 is generated by incinerating waste than by burning those fossil fuels if the choices between landfilling and incineration incineration releases less greenhouse gases but if you could compost or recycle the waste those methods would probably lead to less greenhouse gases however it would depend on the materials landfilling is reduced the amount of Ash generated ranges from 15 to 25 percent if going by weight and from 5 to 15 percent if going by volume so there's less going to the landfill which is a reason why Japan likes this technology as they have little space available for land filling as mentioned previously Japan uses some ash to create artificial Islands thus creating new land electricity and heat is generated electricity is generated as well as Steam that can be used for heating purposes however if you're burning only to generate electricity or steam there are other methods that release less CO2 they are placed in poor communities polluting them in Japan's case I don't really see this for example in Tokyo this is the map of where all the incineration facilities are located they are essentially everywhere okay so that's not an exhaustive list but I believe that covers the main arguments for and against I get the sense that there's a lot of Cherry Picked data on both sides I try to present it as accurately as I could but please keep in mind that I'm no expert one thing I'd like to point out is that not all plants operate the same in a country nor around the world as far as I can tell the plants operating in Japan are up to Japanese environmental standards in any case I left all my sources in the description and I'd love to know what your thoughts are so please drop a line in the comment section special thanks to everyone at Saga city as well as the Saga city waste disposal center for giving us access to film and answering all our questions I wasn't allowed to film in certain areas like where the garbage trucks pull into or where the Sorting happens but staff took my camera and filmed for me so if you look really closely you can spot me in the background in a few shots thanks for watching see you next time peace [Music]

Channel: Life Where I'm From

Views: 884,209

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Id: sAu3LVktMwE

Length: 12min 21sec (741 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022