Environment Connecting the Sea and the Village of the North - The Challenge of Scallop By-Product Recycling 1999

Environment Connecting the Sea and the Village of the North - The Challenge of Scallop By-Product Recycling 1999

In the 1990s, the disposal of food processing residues and fishery waste was a major issue in Japan. In southern Hokkaido, where scallop cultivation is particularly active, large quantities of scallop offal (uro) were discarded and piled up along the coastline. The uro contains cadmium, and there were concerns that dumping it into the ocean would affect the ecosystem and fishing grounds, and the cost of disposal was also a concern for local governments and fishery cooperatives.

Under these circumstances, the three towns of Sunahara, Mori, and Kabe in the jurisdiction of the Oshima Branch Office cooperated to construct a recycling facility that would convert scallop by-products into compost and animal feed by introducing technology from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute. It is estimated that approximately 3,500 tons of by-products can be processed annually, and the project was expected to serve as a model for resource recycling that would link the local fishing industry and agriculture.

At the time, in anticipation of the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society (enacted in 2000), attempts to "convert waste into resources" were sprouting up in many areas at the local government level. While sorted collection was the focus of attention in urban areas with the enactment of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, local fishing villages urgently needed to find ways to make use of fishery by-products. The attempt to recycle scallop by-products as fertilizer and feed is a "regional eco-business" rooted in the region's unique industrial structure.

Furthermore, this project was also beneficial to the farming community. The byproducts of the cadmium treatment could be used as fertilizer, which could lead to a reduction in crop production costs. In other words, this initiative was not only a waste management measure, but also a way to diversify the local economy and promote the coexistence of fishing and farming.

The movement in southern Hokkaido in 1999 was a pioneering challenge that went beyond mere waste disposal and sought to enhance the sustainability of local communities by circulating "gifts from the sea.