Returning Life, Nurturing Soil: The Philosophy of Composting Budding in Choshi (December 2000)

Returning Life, Nurturing Soil: The Philosophy of Composting Budding in Choshi (December 2000)

In 2000, Japan began to shift from "disposal" to "circulation" with the enactment of the "Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-Oriented Society. However, a change in the system does not necessarily mean an immediate change in social consciousness. What will really change is the way we look at things, in other words, the way we think.

In Choshi City, Chiba Prefecture, this quiet idea was sprouting in the soil. The city is rethinking "dirt," such as raw garbage and feces and urine, as nourishment to nurture life once again. In cooperation with an agricultural resource utilization production cooperative, compost is mixed with charcoal and fermented, and returned to the local fields, where vegetables grown there return to the local tables.

This cycle is not just waste disposal. It is the implementation of the concept of "returning as compost. It reduces bad odors, prevents the development of pathogens, and quietly connects agriculture and the city, dining tables and garbage bins, life and death, into a single cycle.

It was not a system. It is a form of ethics. The philosophy of compost that bloomed in the soil of Choshi still breathes softly in the winds of the community.