What Has Brought About the Differences of Household Food

What has Brought about the Differences of Household Food Waste Collection/Recycling Measures between Sweden, Japan and South Korea? A Comparative Analysis of the Interactions among States, Municipal Authorities, the Related Corporations and Citizens in the Policy Processes Wakana Takahashi, Ph.D. Associate Professor Faculty of International Studies, Utsunomiya University 350 Mine Utsunomiya 321-8505 Japan Phone and Facsimile: +81-(0)28-649-5174 E-mail:[email protected] Abstract In Japan, no municipalities with more than a population of 100,000 have carried out household food waste separate collection and recycling policies. There are a few cities which have sought the potentials to introduce food waste collection and recycling system. Nagoya City is among them. Since Nagoya city failed to secure landfills and issued an “emergency declaration” in 1999, the city introduced aggressive 3R policies. In this regard, experiments on recycling household food waste have been conducted in model areas, but such efforts failed to go beyond merely identifying problems and challenges to overcome in the future. Although 90 percent citizens in the model areas hoped to continue food waste recycling, the city did not progress to the point where experiments were expanded to include the entire city. As Nagoya’s case indicates, in Japan, the introduction of household food waste separate collection and recycling systems by municipalities (except for small municipalities and/or municipalities with a high proportion of primary industries) has been considered difficult. However, there are some countries in which most municipalities have introduced household food waste separate collection/recycling measures, even in populated urban areas. Sweden and South Korea are among them. In Sweden, all municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants have implemented food waste recycling. This is also true with South Korea. For example, Over 90% of the household garbage produced in Busan Metropolitan City is collected by municipalities and ends up in recycling routes. The recycling of household food waste appears to have taken root in people’s daily lives as a natural part of society’s infrastructure. How can we explain the factors which has brought about the differences between these three countries? The three countries have commonalities in that it is municipality that has responsibility for municipal waste management. There exist certain variations in terms of waste treatment of the municipalities, depending on the inherent nature and situation of municipalities, i.e. climate, waste compositions, availability of treatment facilities and/or finance, among others. However, the social and technological problems municipalities face with regard to household food waste collection and recycling issues could be in fact be shared by all urban cities across national boundaries. Each municipality is likewise the same in the sense that they continue to study ways to overcome these problems and to explore further possibilities for household food waste policies. Conversely, no city has ever achieved the ideal policy for dealing with household food waste recycling that they eventually hope to achieve; at present, every city can be thought of as still in development stages. Given this situation, the different approaches taken in municipalities in the three countries cannot be explained simply by the inherent nature and situation of municipalities nor by social/technological issues. The author considers that a more comprehensive perspective will be needed to explain the different approaches taken in these three countries; that is, the differences in the lengthy paths that the waste treatment concepts and policies of the countries have taken, dissimilarities in the political and administrative structures, in particular differences in the relationships between states and municipalities, the degree of subsidiary, the degree to which mechanisms for citizen participation have matured, among other factors. With this research interest, this paper aims to investigate what brought the differences of household food waste collection/recycling measures in municipalities in Sweden, Japan and South Korea by comparatively analyzing the interactions among states, municipal authorities, and related corporations and citizens in the policy processes. After a comparative overview of the development trajectories of the three countries waste management concepts and policies and status of household food waste collection and recycling situation, this paper attempts to comparatively analyze the policy processes of food waste collection and recycling of the three countries in an attempt to explain how actors such as the states, corporations, municipal authorities, and ordinary citizens interacted with one another, accommodated each other’s interests, and decided to implement food waste collection and recycling policies. For the purpose of this examination, the policy process is broken down into three phases: policy-making at the national level, policy-making at the municipal level, and policy implementation at the municipal level. For the municipal level analysis, this paper examines the cases of Nagoya city, Malmö City and Busan Metropolitan city respectively. .

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