Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: Solid wastes are a huge problem throughout the world. In Japan, a surprising amount of the trash comes from a nearly universal trend for companies and stores to overpackage their goods. That is because part of the Japanese culture, they prefer their gifts elaborately wrapped.

     Policies and measures: In an attempt to reduce garbage, the Japanese government has adopted an economic policy measure aimed at more sensible packaging. This would make people realize that the garbage disposal is not the sole responsibility of the local government, but individual households and private businesses must also share the burden.

Background in summary:

     Increasing amount of garbage in Japan surprisingly is partly from over wrapping: Japan's ever growing garbage is posing a big environmental problem. Japanese urban residents in 1992 threw away about 37.6 million tonnes of garbage or more than 1.1 kg per Person per day according to a report by the Japanese Association of City Mayors (JACM). The real culprit behind Japan's rising tide of garbage is the excessive amount of wrapping and packaging used by manufacturers. Japanese want their gifts elaborately wrapped.

     Shops are trying to reduce wrapping paper but consumers prefer the more: The retail industry in Japan has started showing environmental concerns and taking steps in this regard. So, the shop owners are trying to meet their customer's wishes while taking a more environmentally responsible step towards packaging, but according to some shop owners, it is not always easy to strike a balance. One effective way of tackling wrapping waste and promoting environmentally friendly attitudes would be to tax companies.

     Dump sites in Japan will soon be saturated: Japan has 616 garbage dumps with a total capacity of 335 million cubic metres. However, most of them are about 65 per cent full and are likely to reach saturation within another six years.

     The Government introduced the consumer-pay policy to reduce dumping: Faced with such problems, the Japanese government is searching for ways of reducing the amount of rubbish thrown by the households. The JACM is pushing the idea of a pay-as-you throw system whereby consumers pay to have their rubbish collected. A consumer-pay system forces people to think carefully before throwing rubbish.

     The policy proved to be successful in some areas: One city that introduced the consumer-pay-system reduced the amount of garbage by almost half over several years.

See also Koreas Volume-based Garbage Collection Fee

Peer Review Committee Good practice rating: (1 for the best, 5 for the lowest score)
Sustainability		Efficiency
2	Improvement in either the environment of economic condition with no harm to the other.	2	Cost efficient.
2	Sustainable over time (not one-off)	Process
Adaptability		2	Participation of the community
3	Location adaptability (can the project be done in other places?)	-	Participation of resource owners/users
3	Socio-cultural adaptability.	-	Partnerships between various actors (Governments, NGO, Academia, Private)
3	Level of development adaptability.	-	Degree of coordination and cooperation between government departments.
2	Style of government adaptability.	2	Ability to attract political interest/support
3	Degree of decentralization adaptability.	-	Procedures for feedback and review.
Comments on this example:      Awareness and visions: A problem that could result from enforcing pay-as-you throw is illegal dumping or burning of garbage to avoid garbage collection fee.      Perhaps a milder alternative might be more interesting, such as, promoting awareness among the people about garbage problems and how they could help reduce. The concept of reduce, reuse and recycle is simple and practical and could be done at an individual level. Sustainability of the project:      Policies and measures: Retailers have been unsuccessful at reducing the amount of wrapping material because the consumers prefer to have their presents wrapped the traditional way - with lots of wrapping paper. So it might be better to implement a demand-side management policy instead, which is, to change consumer preference towards less wrapping material. And that is what the government has been doing through its pay as you throw policy or consumer pay principle. Adaptability of the project to other situations:       Other countries, such as New Zealand and the Philippine Islands have also introduced pay-as-you-throw garbage collection programmes. New Zealand garbage collectors, for example, sell special, colour coded trash bags in super-markets and hardware stores. The cost of the bag includes the cost of collection and the colour coding is used to sort the trash into various recycling categories. Process of decision making and implementation:   Cost efficiency:      These innovative methods using a combination of economic instruments for cost recovery of garbage disposal and reducing excessive packaging to minimize the impact of Japan's waste disposal stream at the same time, makes the policy cost efficient because Expenses and exploitation to produce wrapping material will be reduced. The cost of destroying garbage will now be responsible by the people who cause garbage. Where as before, the government would have to finance all acts of garbage collection and disposal.