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FUMITAKA FURUOKA
BEATRICE LIM FUI YEE
School of Business and Economics
University Malaysia Sabah

The solid waste management is emerged as one of the main administrative and political issues in the various local governments around the world. In many developed and developing countries, the solid wastes become a major source of pollutions. For example, United National Centre for Human Settlement (UNCHS) estimated that less than half of solid wastes in the major cities have been collected by municipal councils and the others have been not properly treated (GDRC, 2006).

The un-treated or ill-treated solid wastes could be harmful for the resident in these cities. Millions of people fall in serious illness due to lack of waste disposal system. According to a statistics from United Nations Development Program (UNDP), more than five million people die each year from diseases related to inadequate waste disposal system (UNDP, 2002).

Therefore, it is little doubt that solid waste disposal became important challenges for federal and local government all over the world. In 1992, United Nations organized the Earth Summit in Brazil. More 60 percent of the political leaders that participated in the summit pointed out that the solid waste management was one of their main environmental concerns (GDRC, 2006).

Against such backdrop, this paper aims to review the solid waste management system in Yokohama city. Yokohama, like other metropolitan city, has faced the dilemma between demographic expansion and solid waste disposal. If a city could create a certain system to manage the existing solid waste and clean the city, this success could induce more people to settle down in the city. The city should reconstruct the solid waste management to deal with newcomers. In other word, creating clean city is the perpetual process of creation and destruction.

This paper consists of five parts. Following this introduction, the second part briefly overviews the history and main demographic and social feather of Yokohama city. The next part analyses the solid waste management of Yokohama city. The final part is the conclusion.

Yokohama city’s history could be traced back to 11^th century when Kanmu Keishi family. Yokohama is ruled by the descendents of Yoshibumi Taira until the 16^th century. During the Edo period, Yokohama came under the direct control of feudal government and became important city in the early 19^th century (Yokohama city, 2006a).

Yokohama city’s modern history, begin in 1859 when Yokohama port is opened by feudal government (Yokohama city, 2006b). As Yokohama port became Japan’s biggest port, Yokohama city has developed as the Japan’s most important port city. Since then, many foreign merchant and diplomatic staff resided in the city. Yokohama city became first and well-developed cosmopolitan city in Japan.

In 1872, Japan’s first railway is opened from Shinbashi in Tokyo to Yokohama The railway transportation enhance the Yokohama’s role as the gateway port city for Japan’s capital and the major commercial and political centre Tokyo. As Yokohama port become an important marine hub, Yokohama is municipalized in 1892 with population of 120,000 (Yokohama city, 2006b).

During World War II, Yokohama became a major target of US military attacks because US tried to destroy Japan’s major marine hubs. Almost half of the city was destroyed by bombing. After the war, Yokohama rise from ashes and restored its port city statues. As Yokohama recovered from the war and become a prosperous port city, its population surpassed 2 million in 1968 (Yokohama city, 2006b).

In 1990, Yokohama’s population surpassed 3 million. Currently, Yokohama city’s population is 3.42 million and it is the second largest city in term of population after the Tokyo which population is 8.12 million. Yokohama is bigger in term of population than other major cities in Japan, such as third largest city, Osaka which is the commercial and political centre of Kansai region and its population is 2.59 million, the fourth largest city, Nagoya which is the commercial centre of Chubu region (Yokohama, 2006c).

An important feature of Yokohama city is its cosmopolitan nature. The number of foreigner rapidly increased recently. The number of foreigner in the city increased from 20.02 thousand in 1985 to 40.32 thousand in 2000. This rapid expansion of foreigner in the city was caused by newcomers in the city from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Brazil and Peru. The number of Chinese in the city increased from 4.52 thousand in 1985 to 14.12 thousand in 2000. There were relatively small number of Pilipino and Brazilian in 1985. In 2000, more than 3 thousand of Pilipino and 2 thousand of Brazilian live in the city (Yokohama, 2006c).

Yokohama city successfully attracted various manufacturing and services industries. They have set up large number of factories or subsidies in the city. Yokohama city’s total output reached ¥11.04 trillion (approximately US$100 billion) in 1990. The output of the Yokohama city totalled ¥12.95 trillion (approximately US$117 billion) in 2000. More recently, Yokohama city’s output slightly decreased from ¥12.58 trillion (approximately US$114 billion) in 2001 to ¥12.52 trillion (approximately US$113 billion) in 2002 (Yokohama city, 2006d).

By industrial breakout of output, Yokohama city’s economy mainly relied on the tertiary sector. Although the secondary sector had played an important role in the Yokohama city’s economic activities, the sector’s share in total out has decreased recently. On the other hand, primary sector’s share has been trivial.

	1990	2000	2002
Primary Sector	16	13	13
Secondary Sector	3531	3172	2576
Tertiary Sector	7845	10306	10466

As Table 1 shows, the primary sector’s output in Yokohama city amounted to ¥16 billion (approximately US$145 million) in 1990 and ¥13 billion (approximately US$118 million) in 2002. The secondary sector’s output totalled ¥3.531 trillion (approximately US$32 billion) in 1990. However, the secondary sector’s output decreased from ¥3.172 trillion (approximately US$28 billion) in 2000 to ¥2.576 trillion (approximately US$23 billion) in 2002. On the other hand, the most important sector in Yokohama city’s economic activities, the tertiary sector’s output increased from ¥7.845 trillion (approximately US$71 billion) in 1990 to ¥10.306 trillion (approximately US$93 billion) in 2000, further to ¥10.466 trillion (approximately US$28 billion) in 2002 (Yokohama city, 2006d)

As Yokohama city’s population grows, the Yokohama city government faces a serious problem to manage the increasing amount of garbage and solid waste. In order to overcome the problem, Yokohama city announced, a bold grand plan, “Yokohama G30 Plan”, which set a target to reduce amount of garbage by 2010. The Yokohama city (2006e) explains the background of this comprehensive plan:

The amount of garbage produced in Yokohama has increased beyond the rate of increase in population. At this rate, not only will we not be able to pass on a healthy urban/global environment to the next generation, but we will also be spending excessive amounts of money on maintaining garbage incineration plants and garbage handling sites.

According to “Yokohama G30 Plan”, Yokohama city tries to reduce the amount of garbage produced in the city by 30 percent by 2010. The three basic principal of “Yokohama G30 Plan” are (Yokahama city, 2006e):

The first two principle aims to increase public awareness for the environmental concern and importance of reducing the amount of garbage and solid waste. In other word, Yokohama city tried to reduce the amount of garbage through public campaign and education.

On the other hand, the third principle is based on more concrete action plan to reduce the amount of garbage and solid waste. Yokohama city decided to implement new and more detailed garbage separation collection system in 2005. Before 2005, each household separated their garbage into the following five categories; 1) general household garbage, 2) cans, bottles and plastic bottles, 3) small metal items, 4) used dry-cell batteries, 5) over-sized garbage (Yokohama city, 2006f).

From April 2005, each household are requested to separate the general household garbage into the following six categories (Yokohama city, 2006f):

Based on this detailed garbage separation system, Yokohama city has collected and treated huge amount of garbage and solid waste. At same time, Yokohama city conducted various campaigns to enhance the public awareness for importance of reducing the household garbage. These public awareness campaigns seem to reduce effectively garbage produced by the city. The amount of garbage collected by Yokohama city reduced from 1.63 million tons in 2002 to 1.58 million tons in 2003, further to 1.38 million tons in 2004 (Yokohama city, 2006g).

	2002	2003	2004
Household garbage	970	964	917
Industrial garbage	662	616	464
Others	5	6	5
Total	1637	1586	1386

As Table 2 shows, the household garbage decreased slightly from 0.97 million tons in 2002 to 0.96 million tons in 2003, further to 0.91 million tons in 2004. On the other hand, amount of industrial garbage produced in Yokohama city drastically reduced. The industrial garbage decreased from 0.66 million tons in 2002 to 0.46 million tons in 2004 (Yokohama City, 2006g).

In short, as its population grows, Yokohama city faced a serious problem of garbage and solid waste management. However, the city government took a bold initiative to reduce the amount of garbage produced in the city by 2010. This action plan is known as “Yokohama G30 Plan”. The city government introduced detailed garbage separation scheme from 2005. The total amount of garbage produced in the city have reduced recently main due to drastic reduction in the amount of industrial garbage.

The solid waste management is emerged as one of the main administrative and political issues in the various local governments around the world. According to a statistics data, more than five million people die each year due to diseases related to inappropriate waste management system.

Against such backdrop, this paper aims to review garbage and solid waste management system in Yokohama city. Although Yokohama is one of biggest cities in Japan and faced a series dilemma to manage the solid waste in the past, its city government creates a systematic waste management system to overcome the problem by setting new bold waste management plan, “Yokohama G30 Plan”.

The city government implement a detailed garbage separation scheme since 2005 and conducted various public campaigns to enhance public awareness for importance of reducing garbage and solid waste. As a result, the city successfully reduced the amount of garbage produced in the city recently mainly due to reduction in the amount of industrial garbage.

Yokohama city government’s successful experience seems to provide the various lessons for other cities, such as Kota Kinabalu. Firstly, the government should combine the public awareness campaign and recycling. Secondly, the government should implement a detail garbage separation scheme in order to facilitate recycling. Thirdly, the government should encourage not only household, but also business sector to reduce their industrial waste. Finally, the government should come up with a detail plan for reducing the amount of garbage and industrial wastes.