Environment
Wabi Sabi
A look at how the Japanese town Kamikatsu will banish waste by 2020.
Tucked almost imperceptibly into cedar-blanketed mountains an hour’s winding drive from the
nearest metropolis, Kamikatsu, Japan seems an unlikely spot for a revolution. But try to throw even a candy wrapper away here, and it’s quickly apparent that residents are radically reshaping their relationship to the environment.
This is a town singularly focused on banishing waste – all waste – by 2020. The 2,000 people of Kamikatsu have dispensed with public trash bins. They set up a Zero Waste Academy to act as a monitor. The town dump has become a sort of outdoor filing cabinet, embracing 34 categories of trash – from batteries to fluorescent lights to bottle caps. On a hill overlooking Kamikatsu are 15 windmills, just completed, that it will maintain in cooperation with two neighboring towns.
Amelia Newcomb is the Deputy International Editor at the Christian Science Monitor in Boston, Massachusetts. A version of this story first appeared in the Christian Science Monitor as part of the series “Japan Influential.
From: Adbusters