Kitakyushu Declaration

January 23rd, 2020
The 12th 3R Conference for Asian Local Governments was held in the City of Kitakyushu on January 23rd,
2020. The presenters consisted of three local governments and one national government from overseas
countries, and one international organization, three Japanese local governments, and four Japanese privateenterprises. The conference was successful, with active discussion held under the theme, “LocalGovernments’ Actions against Plastic Waste Issues and their Challenges.”
Single-use plastic waste such as plastic bottles and bags is a serious problem on a global scale. It isestimated that approximately 8 million tons of plastic waste are discharged into the ocean every year. It has
been forecasted that if we continue dumping plastic into the sea at the present rate, measured by weight,
there will be more plastic than fish by 2050. Moreover, challenges for zero discharge of new plastic waste
into the ocean by 2050 were included in the Leaders’ Declaration at the G20 Osaka Summit in 2019. Plastic
waste management is recognized as an urgent issue which should be tackled seriously and globally.
In these circumstances, central governments in each country are required to formulate plastic waste
reduction policies at the national level. Local governments are required to build partnerships with the private
sector for reducing plastic waste and to support community-based solutions. Besides, private enterprises arerequired to develop processes for utilizing recycled materials in their products and technologies to reduce
microplastics discharged in the wear and damage of them. Moreover, it is recommended to use bioplastics
for products and packaging.
The participants at this conference proposed the following:(1) We request central governments to formulate a comprehensive strategy as a countermeasure for plastic
resource recycling.
(2) Local governments are required to take tangible, community-based, and region-specificcountermeasures against plastic waste.
(3) Services and retailers are expected to refrain from using single-use plastics. Citizens are expected to
avoid purchasing and using single-use plastics.
(4) Local governments should conduct campaigns for motivating citizens not to use single-use plastics.
Raising the awareness of consumers is also important. It is required to take collaborative activities forboth public and private sectors.
(5) Local governments should improve their plastic waste collection systems and establish proper treatment,
recycling, and disposal systems for preventing plastic waste from entering rivers and bays. For
implementing such activities, it is expected that the local governments in the same river basins
cooperate with each other. Citizens also need to cooperate with the collection systems to prevent
scattering of waste and to promote recycling.
(6) For establishing proper treatment, recycling, and disposal systems, advanced technologies, and systems
should be transferred by utilizing city-to-city cooperation.

The participants recognized that the discussion about “Local Governments’ Actions against Plastic Waste
Issues and their Challenges” was very fruitful to understand mutually and share future issues. We reached anagreement that sorting and recycling plastic waste were fundamental, and local governments should beencouraged to implement necessary actions each other. Based on the result of this conference, local
governments participating at the conference are expected to further develop this conference by picking up
the important issues of the 3Rs in the Asian region and promoting information sharing.