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Monday, January 20, 2025

Holy crap*, it’s Earth Day, now what? — Sustainable Goodness

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Back to Unicharm.

From Japan Forward:

The initiative is underway in Shibushi City and Osaki Town in Kagoshima Prefecture. Since the two municipalities do not have incinerators, they built a joint landfill in 1990 to dispose of all their waste.

However, an increase in waste volume meant the landfill, which was expected to last for 15 years, was filling up sooner than expected. So in 1998, the two communities shifted policy toward extending the life of the landfill by promoting recycling.

Currently, the two municipalities collect garbage in 27 separate categories, and 25 of these are fully recycled. Osaki Town achieved a recycling rate of 83.1% in 2018, and has been ranked number one in Japan 14 times. Compared to the national average of 20% in 2020, Osaki Town’s figure is overwhelmingly high.

Despite such thorough recycling efforts, the largest volume of any single item that ends up in the landfill is disposable diapers. They account for about 20% of all landfill waste, and are expected to increase further as the population ages.

Collected used diapers are crushed, washed and materials separated at a demonstration facility located in the So Recycling Center in Osaki Town. The cleaned materials are then treated with ozone to reduce bacteria, bleached, and deodorized. They are then reprocessed into products at a Unicharm facility. The company’s patented treatment technology ensures the products are hygienic, and that bacteria in the recycled materials is “below the detection limit.” The company has also succeeded in recycling superabsorbent polymers (SAP).

Brilliant. Happy Earth Day.



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