Citizens' Collaborative Project for Composting - Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture - October 1996

Citizens' Collaborative Project for Composting - Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture - October 1996

In the 1990s, Japan's waste disposal problems became increasingly serious, and there were calls for the creation of a "recycling-oriented society" that would break away from the traditional reliance on mass incineration and landfill disposal. In particular, following the 1991 revision of the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law and the 1995 enactment of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, local governments began to expand their efforts to reduce waste with the participation of local residents. Against this backdrop, Morioka City in Iwate Prefecture launched a citizen-collaborative project to promote the composting of household food scraps. The city distributes free household composting containers and provides instruction on how to use them. In cooperation with local NPOs, schools, and women's associations, the city has created an environment in which citizens can take the initiative in reducing food waste and turning it into a resource. This initiative created a fl
ow of compost to be recycled into vegetable gardens and farmland within the community, which also led to the revitalization of the local community. At the time, there was a nationwide movement against the construction of incinerators and problems with toxic substances, and citizens' interest in "waste reduction" was growing. Morioka City's project was recognized not only as an environmental measure, but also as a step forward in community development in which residents themselves became leaders in environmental conservation, and became a model for later zero-waste policies and regional resource recycling.