Page 34 - IBs November 2022

Environment

composing facility, where it is shredded into small pieces and is now working to raise awareness in the corporate sector
alongside felled trees and other organic matter, and then of what happens at the end of a product’s life.
turned into compost. Steaming mounds of composting mate- “The citizens here are working really hard, they’ve already
rial fill concrete stalls at the centre, tended by two workers. tried really hard to separate, so the only thing left is for the
After five months, the product, a rich, loamy organic com- company to change what they produce. So we’re trying to
post, is sold to farrmers and residents. collaborate with producers to change their products to more
Community leader Hidaka was previously a paid garbage environmentally friendly ones, or less packaging,” she says.
collector. Now he is using that experience to help reduce Fujita was accompanying Mits Minowa, who is the Marketing
waste. The community provides him with a small stipend from Director-Japan for an American shoe brand, AllBirds, on a tour
their own pockets to support this role. of Osaki’s waste system.
He says after early opposition, people are used to the “AllBirds is also trying to understand how to upcycle,
waste management system now. If people incorrectly sort recycle, to understand the system,” Minowa says, adding that
their rubbish, it is his job to take the garbage bags—each bag customers are increasingly demanding products be recyclable.
bears the name of the household—back to residents to explain He was impressed with what he saw in Osaki. “I think this
what was wrong. As we spoke, he was called away to meet community has a really good education system. Probably
new residents to the town and explain how the system works. from a young age they understand how to cope with society,
About 3% of Osaki’s residents are from Myanmar, Vietnam and and I think that’s the key. And also, the combination with the
other Asian nations, and they are also expected to follow the community, government, business, that kind of integration is
local system. a must.”
Hidaka says the best way to convince people to change Osaki’s Mayor, Yasuhiro Higashi, says they now want to move
their behaviour has been to explain, over and over, the value from a recycling town to a “town that creates the future of
of the program, but that it needs strong partnerships between the world.”
the residents, government and the collection and recycling Higashi wants to work with companies to experiment with
companies to work. new technologies and designs to address social issues such as
waste.
Resources, not rubbish Officials are talking to a disposable diaper company about
From community collection points, recyclable materials go testing a recyclable product in Osaki. Although the details are
to several destinations. The main stop is a busy recycling cen- still confidential, they are hoping to have that product ready
tre, where we watch workers using short sticks to deftly sort in three years from now.
through soft plastics, removing any errant objects. Elsewhere, Of course, some of Osaki’s waste does end up in landfill.
steel and aluminum cans are compressed into square bricks, The town’s dump is fringed by forests and is odourless,
old tatami mats lay stacked in one corner, and glass bottles organised and remarkably ‘clean’, a far cry from what Shizuto
are sorted by colour and type. Cooking oil, which residents Takehara described as the smelly dump full of rats, crows
have strained at home and collected in special bottles, is and methane gas of the past. It is now expected to be able to
processed and used to fuel the rubbish trucks which collect cater for the town’s needs for many years.
waste. Kasumi Fujita at the Osaki SDGs Promotion Council believes
Other materials, such as batteries, are sent back to manu- there are some useful lessons for small Pacific Islands in Osaki.
facturers for recycling, while clothes are turned into rags. “They should start by separating. Not this Osaki style, it’s
Cooperation between government, residents and business just too much, but at least separate the organic waste and
is critical to the success of the Osaki project, which is why others. And then if you separate other waste properly, it can
the town is increasingly playing host to local governments and be sold at a higher price. That can be applied to different
businesses from across Japan and beyond. islands.”
Kasumi Fujita is the Director of the Osaki SDGs Promotion
Council. She spent her childhood in Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji, editor@islandsbusiness.com

34 Islands Business, November 2022