A City that Returns to the Soil: From Choshi, a Circle of Life Linked by Compost (December 2000)

A City that Returns to the Soil: From Choshi, a Circle of Life Linked by Compost (December 2000)

In the year 2000, Japan was about to carve the term "recycling-oriented society" into its system. The incineration-centered waste management policy was beginning to lose some of its appeal, and "avoided items" such as raw garbage and feces and urine were beginning to be reevaluated as resources. At that time, in Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture, a new circle was quietly beginning to turn.

In Choshi, the production of fully matured compost using food scraps and livestock feces had begun in cooperation with the Agricultural Resource Utilization Production Cooperative. The compost is not to be disposed of. It is compost that is "grown. The compost is supplied to contracted farmers, and the grown crops are returned to local supermarkets. Life that had been disposed of outside the community is now living as nourishment for the community.

Charcoal is mixed in to prevent foul odors and pathogens. Agriculture, waste disposal, and distribution. This system, which "connects" these three without separating them, is not just a technology. It has given what used to be called garbage a way to return to the soil. The city and agriculture have once again found a way to live together, a symbiotic relationship that they had almost forgotten.