Kitayama Co., Ltd. is located on a small hill in Yokohama.

Kitayama Co., Ltd. is located on a small hill in Yokohama. The surrounding area is dotted with peaceful farmland. After retiring from the company where he had worked for many years, the owner established Kitayama Co., Ltd. in February 1996 as a company specializing in the sale of welfare products and support for the waste manifest system. Currently, the owner is renovating his home, which also serves as the company’s office. The company’s support services for the manifest system are attracting attention as the only such service among the eight offered. We spoke with President Kinue Kitayama about this service. The “manifest system” is a system used when waste generators entrust the disposal of industrial waste to a contractor. The name, quantity, characteristics, names of the transport and disposal operators, and handling precautions for the industrial waste are recorded on a “management form (manifest),” allowing the flow of industrial waste to be tracked and managed. Depending on the type of waste, a manifest form booklet containing 4 to 8 sheets (25 yen per sheet) is used. The system is designed so that the waste generator, the collection/transportation company, and the disposal company each retain a copy of the form, with the final copy ultimately returning to the waste generator. The Manifest System began as an administrative guideline in April 1990 and was established as a legally enforceable system in July 1992 with the implementation of the "Special Control Industrial Waste Management Form" system under Article 12, Paragraph 3 of the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act. Target waste includes waste oil, waste acids, infectious industrial waste, and specified hazardous industrial waste. The service provided by Kitayama is the handling of manifest administrative tasks for this specially managed industrial waste. We input the information from the collected manifests into a computer on a monthly basis and prepare reports for the prefectural governor. Since many industrial waste collection and transportation companies are small, they may struggle to keep up with the administrative work involved in the manifest system. Kitayama aims to provide support to these operators. Currently, only one company is using the agency service, which was launched in late 1996. The company handles approximately 300 slips per month for 25,000 yen. “The revenue isn’t substantial, but gaining the trust of these operators is crucial. We will work diligently to increase our customer base,” says President Kitayama. President Kitayama learned about the Fuji Electric software “FSPAC,” which the company currently uses, through a developer who lived in his neighborhood when he previously resided there. Impressed by the developer’s enthusiasm, he decided to start this business to help promote the software. In addition to providing administrative processing services using the software, the company also engages in sales activities, such as software sales and training, and has secured five sales contracts to date. In February 1997, Kitayama exhibited his manifest administrative outsourcing services at “Technical Show Yokohama ’97” held in Yokohama. This service attracted significant attention and was featured in publications such as the Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun and the Kankyo Shimbun. Furthermore, with the amendment to the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act currently under deliberation in the Diet, there is a possibility that the manifest system will be expanded to cover all industrial waste. If this amendment is enacted, it will present a new business opportunity for Kitayama. “Currently, the ratio of revenue from welfare services to industrial waste is about 7:3,” says President Kitayama. “Our immediate goal is to expand our administrative support for the manifest system and bring the revenue balance to about 50-50.”