Closing the Loop: Part 1- How Kamikatsu, Japan has Adopted a Low-Waste Home Lifestyle
Meet the people of Kamikatsu, Japan. A small town that has successfully closed the loop with its zero-waste packaging and use of reusables.
Three Steps to a Waste-Free Home
If you’re interested in pursuing a zero-waste lifestyle you may have heard of Kamikatsu and its incredible achievements with waste recycling and repurposing. We can take Kamikatsu’s story as a blueprint for creating a waste-free living at home and beyond.
40 Kilometers from the closest main city, Tokushima, lays a small town surrounded by lush green mountains called Kamikatsu. But this is no ordinary small town. The 1,500~ citizens that inhabit it have spent over 20 years re-using, recycling, and reducing their waste. The 750 low-waste homes have become incredibly accustomed to organizing their waste production across a full-fledged taxonomy system consisting of over 45 waste categories.
Until the early 2000s, the town simply followed the Japanese way of disposing of waste, a ‘dirty’ yet very common practice among Asian countries: Incineration. Eventually, one of the town’s incinerators got shut down as it no longer met the minimum emissions standards. This left a single incinerator operating, which couldn’t possibly bear everyone’s waste. Being a small mountainous town whose main source of income is seasonal farming, Kamikatsu was forced to choose: continue with subpar recycling practices or make way for something new…
Instead, Kamikatsu set an ambitious goal back in 2003: to recycle all of its waste and end the dependency on incinerators for good. Now, the town estimates that 81% of its waste is being recycled or repurposed, allowing it to get close to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.
How did Kamikatsu achieve zero waste?
Incentive systems
Not even the best practices can be sustainable without the right incentive system in place. The town’s residents collect recycling points by correctly managing their waste, which they can then exchange for eco-friendly products. These are all made from wasted materials being recycled. Moreover, families are actively reminded of how much money the town is saving by relying on recycling rather than incinerators: faster does not mean better, especially when it comes with a large carbon footprint.
2. Perseverance
Building such a system took years. Kamikatsu did not go from zero efforts to zero waste overnight. In 1997 it began with a focus on 9 categories of waste recycling. The following year it increased to 22, and by 2001 it managed to shut down the incinerator for good and began recycling 35 categories until it reached 45 in 2015.
It also took time for every resident to get accustomed to the practice of sorting waste and to divulge the necessary awareness and education. Like any other habit, it took practice and repetition to get all individuals to correctly clean plastic, separate glass by color, and sort anything from bottle caps, instant ramen containers, cutlery, drink bottles, and so on in the appropriate baskets. But eventually, people got used to it. And as sorting trash became a way of life, it also started to deter people from eventually buying things they don’t need or indulging in single-use plastic items.
3. Community
But what’s astonishing about this small town’s initiative is not so much the goal it set for itself - although they were the firsts, everybody sets sustainability goals nowadays - it’s rather the discipline, the perseverance, the social trust, and community that brings this meticulous practice forward in everybody’s daily life, across generations!
This town’s journey to a zero-waste life teaches us that there is an unavoidable component to make closed-loop systems and a circular economy successful: social trust. Without an educated and supportive community, such high rates of recycling would not be achievable. When we think of the big cities most of us live in, it seems impossible to build such a system where every single individual cares enough to throw their trash in 45 different bins. We’re used to a fast-paced life where waste management is something that doesn’t even cross our minds. We throw everything in one big plastic bag and poof! It’s turned into dust (or rather, ahem, CO2). How could we re-invent a society with such values as Kamikatsu? Well, just like they did: start small and keep aiming big.
Buying
But life in Kamikatsu is not all about trash…That’s right, the zero waste mentality has also trickled down to the way Kamikatsu residents produce and consume food as well as the structure of the environments they live in.
For example, a local craft beer maker relies upon unutilized farm crops and other food wastes that would have been thrown away to produce its bubbly brews. Not only do they repurpose food waste but Rise and Win Brewery prides itself on closing the loop -- using grains as liquid fertilizer to grow barley for their next batch of ales. If that's not enough, the venue itself is primarily made of recyclable materials. Rise and Win brewery also ensures to utilize its own production waste, used grain, as liquid fertilizer to grow barley for the next glass of beer. And, of course, the venue itself is also made of upcycled materials. They truly closed the loop!
The theme continues with Cafe Polestar, where one delicious recipe is made available each day with locally produced ingredients available based on seasonality. Not only is each lunch focused on sustaining a closed-loop economy but is also uniquely wrapped in leaves, which can then be re-used and sold to Japanese luxury hotels and restaurants as sustainable decorations.
If by now you’re curious to visit this unique town, you can also stay at a zero-waste hotel to fully immerse yourself in this way of living. Hotel Why (as in ‘why do you buy it?’, ‘why do you throw it?’, ‘why do you produce it?’, ‘why do you sell it?’) is built with local wood and discarded doors and windows. Are you ready to visit?
Consuming
When it comes to products that are still in good condition, people can drop them off at the Kuru Kuru zero waste shop (literally translates to “round and round)” close by the waste facility. Here, anybody can take the leftover items for free, giving them a new life. Before leaving, individuals just need to record the weight of their free items so that the town can keep track of the volumes of renewed waste.
In January 2022 alone this amounted to 985 pounds. Even the shop itself is made entirely of upcycled materials - zero waste has become part of the social and material architecture of Kamikatsu!
This just goes to highlight that a zero-waste life goes beyond purchasing circularly-made products, but also repurposes items.
Discarding
The residents of Kamikatsu diligently bring the waste to the town’s facility (the Zero Waste Center) themselves and ensure that dirty items such as plastic bottles and bags are thoroughly washed to facilitate recycling. For the elderly members of society that may not be able to bring their waste all the way down to the Zero Waste Center, the community has mobilized to ensure a weekly trash pick-up service has been introduced.
Delving deeper into the numbers, Kamikatsu managed to cut ⅓ of its spending on incinerations, bringing 3 million yen in annual revenues from the sale of recycled materials which cover half of its yearly waste management costs.
Doing things sustainably doesn't mean a sunk cost - it's a synonym for both efficiency and often more capital gains. Rendering a process slower can actually save both carbon emissions AND money. This is a beautiful story of how a community-based effort of cooperation leads to value creation. In fact, ultimately, without the strong social capital of this community, coupled with the local regulations that allow cities/towns to independently recycle their waste, carbon neutrality couldn’t be possible.
Practical Application
If you’re inspired by this story you may be wondering, “how can I apply this to my life and my community?” We were wondering the same thing. So, we decided to make Part 2: Practical Applications to explore the topic further. Check it out here!
Key Takeaways
Kamikatsu is a small town in Japan with an ambitious goal: Zero Waste by 2030. But unlike other bold sustainability objectives, Kamikatsu has been consistently working towards this goal since 1997 and has now reached 81% recycling efficiency.
To achieve this, its residents embraced zero waste as a lifestyle that goes beyond waste management and into the way the community produces, consumes, and operates across all facets of life and the local economy.
This was only possible due to the incredible discipline and social cohesion of the local community, also guided by an incentivizing point-based reward system.
Kamikatsu is an example of how transforming processes, making them slower, community-based and circular actually saves money, resources, and carbon emissions.
