**"Bottles that Return Across the Sea - Hachijojima's Attempt at Resource Recycling" - September 1998**.

**"Bottles that Return Across the Sea - Hachijojima's Attempt at Resource Recycling" - September 1998**.

In the late 1990s, while recycling systems were being developed throughout Japan, waste disposal was a serious issue on Hachijo-jima Island, an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean in Tokyo. The island has a population of approximately 8,000 and is located 300 km south of Tokyo. With limited land and incineration facilities, the island was unable to handle waste as well as urban areas, and had to rely on the mainland for much of its processing.

In 1998, an island-wide effort was made to introduce a deposit system for PET bottles. This system requires a deposit of a few yen at the time of purchase, which is refunded when the used container is returned. PET bottles of 2 liters or less and aluminum and steel cans of 500 milliliters or less were subject to this system. Stores were labeled with identification stickers and served as collection and settlement points. A sense of "return the cans properly when you put them out" has sprouted among the islanders.

This attempt was based on the institutional design of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, which had been fully enforced the previous year, but the operation of the system was considered difficult on remote islands. On Hachijojima, a new form of circulation was being established through close cooperation among residents, local government, and retailers, with collection by ship to the mainland. Despite the problems of transportation costs and collection systems, a circle of resources that "crosses the sea and returns" has begun to emerge.

The Hachijojima model was a pioneering effort to make resource recycling possible through "collection" and "collaboration" in a region where it is difficult to recycle resources within the community. This movement, in which the roles of government, residents, and businesses were shared, and awareness of resource recycling took root in daily life, spread to remote islands and depopulated areas throughout Japan. A bottle that leaves the quiet beach of an island crosses Tokyo Bay and returns its value to the island again. In this cycle, human hands and will, which transcend economics and institutions, certainly reside.