Medical Waste Recycling Plant in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and the Search for a Recycling-Oriented Society 2003

Medical Waste Recycling Plant in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, and the Search for a Recycling-Oriented Society 2003

Around 2003, the medical waste reclamation plant built by Aso Mine in the Eco-Town area of Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture, attracted attention as an advanced facility symbolizing a recycling-oriented society. The plant was equipped with a system to crush and sterilize syringes, gauze, and other infectious waste from hospitals, and recycle them into solid fuel and plastic containers. At the time, medical waste disposal was dominated by incineration, which was causing serious dioxin problems and increased costs.

Kitakyushu City was once known as a pollution city, but with the experience of overcoming pollution, the city was transforming itself into an environmental industrial center in cooperation with the national government. The city's Eco-Town was conceived as a model of resource recycling for the entire city, with a concentration of recycling facilities for home appliances, automobiles, construction waste, and other products. The medical waste recycling plant was at the core of this concept, embodying the shift from the idea of "burning and processing" waste to the idea of "reusing waste as a resource.

The Kyoto Protocol, the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-based Society, and the development of recycling-related laws were all part of the background to a time when society as a whole was strongly aware of the need for resource recycling and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Kitakyushu City's efforts were highly evaluated as an example of how to link environmental load reduction and industrial promotion, and to demonstrate the city's transition to an "environmentally industrial city. This case symbolized the transition of Japan's waste policy to a new phase, and was an important step toward the realization of a recycling-oriented society.