Silviase/jgov_v1.4_full_ann huggingface dataset:
Night soil remained a valuable organic resource throughout the Edo era. Night soil produced in the city of Edo, a megalopolis with an estimated population of 1 million, was transported to suburban farms and stored in special night soil reservoirs. These night soil reservoirs made use of the heat generated by fermentation to sanitize the night soil and produce good quality manure which was then used for suburban vegetable farming.

Toilets in the Edo era (called koka in Edo and secchin in the Kamigata region, including Kyoto and Osaka) were usually shared between several families in cities, where terrace houses called nagaya were common. Toilets were designed so that night soil could be easily collected from them.

To ensure an adequate supply of night soil for manure production, farmers in the suburbs of Edo contracted with the owners of samurai residences and nagaya houses in order to obtain the rights to collect night soil in exchange for money or goods. In the mid-Edo era, brokerage groups emerged to arrange night soil trading between urban citizens and farmers, boosting night soil use. The late Edo era even saw instances of farmers in Tokyo suburbs facing serious financial difficulties due to increasing night soil prices, and petitioning the shogunate government. This shows just how important the use of urban night soil for fertilizer production was for farmers.

Large amounts of ash were also produced during the Edo period because people used wood for cooking. This ash was also used as fertilizer by local farmers. Urban citizens accumulated their domestic ash, which was then collected by ash brokers who sold it on to farmers for use as fertilizer. Although ash had many other uses, it is a good example of CRs that were circulated between cities and rural villages.

Source : Ehon Edo Murasaki (Illustrated Book ‘Edo Violet’)
Many local products and specialties emerged during the Edo era. Vegetables were cultivated in and around Edo as local specialties. Nerima radish, Komatsuna greens (produced around Komatsugawa) and Takinogawa burdocks are examples of "Edo vegetables" which satisfied the appetite of Edo people in terms of both quality and quantity. The ability to produce large amounts of this sort of local produce was a major benefit resulting from the effective use of night soil as fertilizer (Figure4-2-2).

Figure 4-2-2 Edo vegetable-producing districts

Source : Ministry of the Environment

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## Safe and sanitary night soil reservoirs in Japan

Rice cultivation was introduced to Japan from China during the Yayoi era. Initially, cultivation technologies were developed under the technical guidance of settlers from the Korean Peninsula. However, original irrigation technologies and farming methods, more suitable for the climate and the natural features of Japan, were also developed by the Japanese people themselves. In the early years of rice cultivation, fertilizer was available in the form of young leaves and weeds or ash from slash-and-burn agriculture. As the population grew and paddy fields expanded, farmers began using cow and horse manure. Later, when the double-cropping of rice and wheat began, during the Heian era, people also began using night soil as fertilizer.

However, there is a problem associated with handling night soil in that it can harm the living environment and has a bad odor if left untreated. If any live pathogenic bacteria or parasitic worm eggs are present, night soil can even spread infectious diseases. Another problem is that, if used as fertilizer without any treatment first, night soil may damage plant roots because it generates heat and releases hazardous gases such as ammonia during decomposition.

Hence, before being used as a fertilizer, night soil needs to be chemically or biochemically stabilized in order to prevent decomposition and it must be processed to ensure sanitary safety and prevent infectious diseases spreading throughout society. The key question here is how people, long ago,
## C SMC blocks, according to regional characteristics

Efforts to create a SMC in accordance with regional characteristics were also observed in regions outside Edo. In the Kamigata region, including Osaka and Kyoto, night soil was also utilized and fostered the formation of intraregional material cycles well-suited to regional characteristics. For example, farmers in Settsu and Kawachi contracted with urban dwellers in Osaka in order to collect night soil for use as fertilizer. Another example of the utilization of night soil was found in the domain of Kaga (governed by the Maeda clan).

As shown by these selected cases, SMC blocks were established in many parts of Japan in a way that took full advantage of regional characteristics.

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## “Kudaranai” and SMC blocks for local production for local consumption

Compared with high-grade sake transported from the Kamigata region, local sake in Edo was cheaper and therefore called “kudaranai” sake, literally meaning sake not brought down from Kamigata. Some believe that the expression “kudaranai” in the modern Japanese language, meaning worthless, is derived from this.

However, this word also demonstrates that products from Kamigata had become easily available in Edo as a result of economic growth in areas around Edo. The fact that the word kudaranai and economic growth, two seemingly opposite elements, were actually more like two sides of the same coin suggests that things regarded as kudaranai today may have a more complex background than first thought and could actually be of some use.

## (2) Systems for appropriate waste disposal

A typical example of waste disposal in the Edo era, and one that may still be applicable to today's society, is the system by which government-authorized contractors collected waste and carried it to final disposal sites in order to ensure its appropriate disposal. Establishing such a system for the correct disposal of waste is a necessary prerequisite to forming a SMC.

### A. Edo's waste disposal system

The initial waste disposal method used in Edo was the dumping of waste within the grounds of each residence or in empty lots, rivers and moats. Another dumpsite was a place called the "kaisho-chi," which was a vacant lot that each district of Edo had at its center and which was used partly as a dumpsite. However, dumping in these places had harmful effects, such as obstructing roads, waterways and firebreaks and bothering neighbors with bad odors, mosquitoes and flies.

In light of this unsatisfactory situation, the magistrate’s office issued an official town notice banning the dumping of waste in kaisho-chi in 1649 and designated a place named Fukagawa Eitaiura as a dumpsite in 1655. In 1662, disposal companies were designated, leading to the establishment of a mechanism in which wastes were gathered in designated places ready for disposal by these disposal companies. As a result of these efforts, the three key processes involved in waste management, namely collection, transport and disposal, were all successfully organized in Edo.
[Collection and transport in Edo]

Source : Yowatari Fuzoku Zue (Collected Genre Paintings of the World)

Policies such as these were adapted to people’s real lives at the time they were implemented. The town magistrate sometimes even consulted members of the public over the acceptability of an ordinance before issuing it. Edo citizens are said to have been very good at integrating government ordinances into their daily lives. This sort of “community wisdom” probably contributed to Edo’s success in establishing an effective waste disposal system at such an early date.

There were also many ordinances banning the dumping of waste in non-designated areas. By about 1699, ordinances were in place that banned the dumping of waste in rivers and required disposal companies to carry waste to disposal sites in an appropriate manner. Edo already had a responsible waste disposal mechanism that somewhat resembles today's measures used to prevent illegal dumping.

### B. Development of new agricultural land

The wastes carried to Eitaiura for final disposal were primarily household kitchen garbage and soil combined with the rubble removed from fire sites, all of which decomposed naturally in about a year. Since Eitaiura was originally a wetland, rubble and soil dumped there as waste eventually formed new land. The shogunate government, which was developing new farmland, found this reclaimed landfill site valuable and used it for agriculture.

Records show that, starting with the reclamation project in Fukagawa Eitaiura, the government reclaimed at least 10 sites, including Eitaijima Shinden and Sunamura Shinden (49.5 hectares), during the Edo era.

By the late 18th century, over 380,000 tsubo (approximately 1,254,000 square meters) of land had been reclaimed (Figure4-2-3).
Figure 4-2-3 Major landfill sites in the Edo

Note: Locations are only approximate.

Name	Current place name	Landfill period	Size of landfill	Notes
Start	End
Fukagawa Eitaiura	Around Tomioka, Fuyuki and Kiba, Koto Ward	Nov. 25, 1655	1724	Became the property of the shogunate in Dec. 1733.
Eitai Shinden (Eitaijima Shinden)	Around Ishijima and Sengoku, Koto Ward	Jun. 30, 1681	July 1730
Sunamura Shinden	Around Minami-suna, Koto Ward	Jun. 30, 1681	495,900m²
Senda Shinden (Juman-tsubo Tsukiji)	Around Senda, Sen-goku and Kaihin, Koto Ward	1704	1711	330,600m²	Became the property of the shogunate in Dec. 1733.
Ishioda Shinden (Rokuman-tsubo Tsukiji)	Around Toyo, Koto Ward	1725	198,360m²	Same as above
Hirai Shinden	Around Toyo and Minamisuna, Koto Ward
Fukagawa Ecchujima	Around Ecchujima, Botan and Furu-ishiba, Koto Ward	1730	495,900m²

Source : Created by Ministry of the Environment, based on “Tokyo Seiso Jigyo Hyakunen Shi”
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## The Edo era and people’s own efforts

People in the Edo era used their goods with care, in keeping with the spirit of mottainai. This is something that modern society can use as a guide in promoting new initiatives to establish a SMC. For example, as many as 1,000 organizations were engaged in recycling in the city of Edo and there were activities aimed at creating a SMC in all four classes of the population: warriors, farmers, artisans and tradesmen.

The expression “shisso kenyaku” (living a simple and frugal life), which also symbolizes the life of samurai, reflects the samurai’s lifestyle of not wasting things. Keizai Zuihitsu (An Essay on Economy), a book describing the rules of the samurai lifestyle in those days, introduces tips on how to practice mottainai: “When buying clothes, buy those with the same pattern for all family members so that they may later be used for patching each other’s clothes”; “Waste threads can be used as a wick”.

One piece of literature that describes how samurai and their rulers fostered the mottainai spirit is Seiryoki, written by a medieval general in the Iyo-Uwajima region. This book explains how people in his fief made effective use of night soil.

[Used clothes store]

Source : Edo Shokunin Uta-awase (Edo Artisan Poetry Contest)

Even castles were built in keeping with the mottainai spirit. The Hikone Castle used some recycled construction materials for the castle keep, turret and walls. Castles like this are well-preserved and still exist today.

Since farmers in those times mostly cultivated rice, they used many common tools derived from rice cultivation. For example, rice straw left behind after harvest (and still used as fertilizer and feed today), was a necessity in every aspect of life, including food, clothing and shelter. This straw had many uses. It was used to make clothing, such as woven hats, rain capes and zori sandals. It was used to make rice bags, fermentation packets for natto (fermented soybeans), and for livestock feed. It was also used for shelter, providing roofing and mats, as well as handicrafts to decorate the house for the New Year. Even when these household goods made from rice straw were no longer useful and were discarded, farmers still gathered them up and used them as fertilizer.

[Waraji sandals dumped at the roadside]

Source : Edo Meisho Zue (An Illustrated Book of the Sights of Edo)

Artisans and tradesmen also worked in a way that saved resources.

The industrial products in the Edo era were all made manually by artisans. This manufacturing process, although requiring a great deal of time and labor, minimized the wastage of resources. For example, in the color plate-making and printing processes used to create nishikie colored woodprints, the surface of each used wood-block was shaved flat so that it could be reused. Artisans making metal products used iron scrap as a raw material because, in those days, the process of refining metals from ores required advanced technology and much energy.

Many tradesmen in the Edo era were engaged in businesses corresponding to today's reuse and repair.
## 2 Japan’s history of responsible disposal of waste, from the Meiji to Heisei eras

This section provides an overview of the history of Japan’s responsible waste disposal activities, from the Meiji to Heisei eras(Figure4-2-4).

Figure 4-2-4 Japan's history of appropriate waste disposal

Legislation and policy formulation	Organizational change	Changes in systems and technology	Per capita GDP
(in US dollars)
1954 Public Cleansing Law	1960	477
1967 Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control
1970 Waste Management Law	1971 Environment Agency established	(1970)
Improvement in hygiene	1970	1,963
1976 Amended Waste Management Law
1991 Amended Waste Management Law	1980	9,170
1995 Containers and Packaging Recycling Law	1985	11,381
2000 Fundamental Law for Establishing a SMC Society	2001 Ministry of the Environment established
(waste management administration transferred from Ministry of Health and Welfare)	(1990)
(2000)
3Rs	1990	24,815
2003 1st Fundamental Plan for Establishing a SMC Society	1995	41,952
2008 2nd Fundamental Plan for Establishing a SMC Society	2000	36,790
2005	35,675

Source : Ministry of the Environment

## (1) From the Meiji to early Showa eras

As Japan entered the Meiji era, with large-scale industries and urban areas starting to develop, the government clarified the methods of waste disposal to be used. Although waste disposal during this period was much the same as that in the Edo era, the mottainai-based lifestyle gradually changed as Western cultures were imported. People began throwing away goods that had once been effectively reused or recycled, resulting in an increase in both waste quality and quantity. It was about this time that the government began promoting the construction of large-scale waste disposal sites.

Also, as Japan’s exchange with foreign countries increased, infectious diseases such as cholera and the plague were brought into Japan from overseas. The plague epidemic at the end of 1887 prompted the country to address the issue of waste and night soil disposal from the viewpoint of public hygiene. Consequently, the Unsanitary Substance Cleaning Law was instituted in 1900 in order to assign responsibility for waste disposal to municipal governments. In accordance with this law, the Tokyo City Government started collecting waste generated in central
Tokyo. Records show that the daily amount of waste produced in Tokyo was approximately 800 tons, which translates into a per capita amount of approximately 290 grams, given that the population at that time was about 2.75 million.

## (2) The Post-World War II period (before the period of high economic growth)

After World War II, farmers stopped using night soil as fertilizer because of the widespread availability of chemical fertilizer and because of the major changes in farm villages triggered by the process of agrarian reform. With the loss of the traditional disposal methods, night soil disposal posed a problem. Waste disposal became another serious problem as the Japanese economy entered the postwar recovery period, accelerating urban development. In those times, waste and night soil were dumped in the ocean or in landfills. Many landfill sites were unsanitary and bred large numbers of mosquitoes and flies (Figures4-2-5).

Figure 4-2-5 Trends in waste disposal methods

(Note) The data for FY 1970 and before are total waste production in the special cleaning districts under the Public Cleaning Law. The FY 1975 data do not include waste directly brought in, such as waste associated with house-moving.

Source : Ministry of the Environment

Japan instituted the Public Cleansing Law in 1954. With the stipulated aim of improving public hygiene, this law was intended to enhance the waste disposal system by making the municipal governments responsible for providing sanitation services and defining disposal zones through the establishment of a special sanitation zone system. In other words, following on from the concept of the Unsanitary Substance Cleaning Law, this new law defined waste and night soil as “unsanitary substances” and sought to dispose of them for public hygiene reasons so that a sanitary and comfortable living environment could be maintained.

In the Showa 30s (1955-1964), the production of chemical fertilizer increased as the economy grew. The widespread availability of chemical fertilizer throughout Japan led to falling demand for night soil on farms, forcing municipal governments in urban areas to address the problem of developing new waste and night soil disposal technologies. This was a time of great difficulty for the municipal administration for waste management because major changes in both the quantity and quality of waste produced during this period of rapid economic growth distorted
reduced waste generation, sorted collection and recycling.

Although the above projects all had to be closed down without delivering as good a result as initially expected, Japan has leaned many lessons from them and has now developed new capabilities to convert its society into a SMC one.

## (4) The Heisei period (from 1989 to the present)

### A. Amendment of the Waste Management Law and related efforts

The Japanese economy continued to grow, even after the high-growth period, creating a society with a high degree of material affluence. On the other hand, the country underwent social changes that led to the increased adoption of a lifestyle based on mass consumption and the throwaway principle. These changes resulted in an increase in the amount and the diversity of waste and made it harder to dispose waste appropriately. These developments have led to several phenomena and incidents such as municipal solid waste in the Kanto region being carried to the distant Tohoku region for disposal because of lack of incinerating facilities and the difficulty of securing final disposal sites; a large amount of industrial waste, primarily shredder dust, being illegally dumped in Teshima, Kagawa Prefecture; and a large amount of industrial waste, primarily waste oil, being illegally dumped in an abandoned mine in Fukushima Prefecture.

Since the beginning of the Heisei era, Japan has improved its framework for responsible waste disposal by amending the Waste Management Law and introducing a range of other initiatives to cope with a situation in which the waste disposal issue needs to be addressed not only as an environmental conservation problem but also as the more fundamental problem of how to deal with the wastes that are produced each and every day.

In order to become a member of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, Japan amended the Waste Management Law in 1992, in addition to enacting the Law for the Control of Export, Import and Others of Specified Hazardous Wastes and Other Wastes. This amended law stipulated that, in principle, all wastes should be disposed of within Japan, and imposed the necessary regulations on waste imports and exports (e.g., the introduction of an export confirmation system and an import permit system). Rules on the international movement of wastes were also established pursuant to this law.

There were other developments concerning measures to be taken against domestic hazardous substances as well. One of them concerned batteries containing mercury. In 1983, the Kurashi no Techo (A Note of the Life) magazine pointed out the risk of environmental pollution from the mercury contained in waste batteries. In the same year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Institute for Environmental Protection announced that waste batteries could cause environmental pollution in the process of incineration and landfill. This issue became a major public concern.

In order to improve the management of the mercury contained in batteries, the government
2) Promoting appropriate and cyclical use of CRs that have been generated; and

3) Ensuring that CRs which are not subject to cyclical use are disposed of appropriately.

In other words, a SMC Society is a sustainable development-oriented society in which the following concepts are adopted as the basic socioeconomic principles: socioeconomic activities and people's lifestyles based on the 20th century model of mass-production, mass-consumption and mass-disposal are reviewed; resources are used efficiently; waste generation is minimized; unavoidable wastes are recycled as resources; and wastes for which no means of recycling can be found are responsibly disposed of.

### D. Suggestions to put Japan’s experience to good use

This chapter has described Japan’s path to a SMC by providing an overview of the systems used from the Edo era through to the present. Although Japan already had an established SMC Society in the Edo era, as it later opened itself to the world and tried to model the country upon Western nations, the Japanese way of thinking about goods and production styles changed. The country moved towards a mass-production and mass-consumption society. A variety of products produced in and after the 1970s caused many waste disposal problems, but systems and technologies for the responsible disposal and effective use of wastes also developed gradually over the same period. Progress towards a SMC Society gained momentum through the amendment of the Waste Management Law and the establishment of recycling laws in the 1990s and, since 2000, Japan has been recognized as a world leader in forming a SMC Society.

Developing countries are now in the midst of economic growth just like that experienced by Japan during its period of high economic growth. The inappropriate disposal of waste is common in these countries, and this includes the open dumping of waste, often industrial waste, and the open-air burning of waste. Electrical and electronic appliances imported from overseas, nominally for the purpose of reusing and recycling them, are also often subject to inappropriate treatment, posing a threat to the local living environment.

[Open-air burning of waste in developing countries]

Source : Website of the Japan Industrial Waste Technology Center

With resource conservation programs in these rapidly developing cities still far from complete, developing countries are nowhere near being able to deal with issues of global concern, such as resource problems and global warming problems. Japan needs to help them by sharing its
experience.

Japan’s accumulated experience must be of help in solving many of the problems these Asian countries are faced with. Bearing in mind the history of Japanese systems described in this chapter, Japan should expand its program of assistance to other countries, especially in Asia, and help promote the establishment of a SMC Society, worldwide.