22 Established 1961 Monday, June 17, 2019 Lifestyle Features A worker sorting newspapers and magazines for recycling at a waste center in the town Separated metal items at a waste center in the town of Kamikatsu, A worker stacking sheets of compacted aluminum cans at a waste center of Kamikatsu, Tokushima prefecture. — AFP photos Tokushima prefecture. in the town of Kamikatsu, Tokushima prefecture. lastic, paper, metal? In Japan’s then let’s recycle.’ It’s cheaper to recycle waste plastic products.” In 2018, Japan’s government Kamikatsu, sorting rubbish isn’t that sim- than burn it,” said town official Midori Suga. unveiled a proposal to tackle plastic waste, Pple. Residents face a mind-boggling 45 Kamikatsu is already close to achieving its with the goal of reducing the 9.4 million tonnes separate categories for their garbage as the goal, recycling about 80 percent of the 286 produced by the country each year by a quar- town aims to be “zero-waste” by 2020. And tons of waste it produced in 2017, far more ter by 2030. The plan proposes that retailers that’s not all: there isn’t even trash collection. than the national average of 20 percent. should charge for plastic bags-a measure Bottles separated into drums at a waste centre in the The 1,500 residents of the town in western The remainder, like most waste in Japan, is already widely adopted around the world-but town of Kamikatsu, Tokushima prefecture. Japan have to transport their waste themselves incinerated, as the country’s mountainous ter- that isn’t expected to come into effect before to a local facility. “Yes, it’s complicated,” said rain considered unsuitable for landfills. 2020 and other types of plastic packaging Naoko Yokoyama, a 39-year-old resident who The nation produces less general waste per won’t be covered. had brought her trash to the town’s waste cen- person than most developed countries, but it ter. “But I have become more environmentally generates more plastic waste per capita than conscious since I moved here a year ago,” she anywhere except the United States. In the past, told AFP. some plastic was exported for recycling, par- The categories cover everything from pil- ticularly to China, but a ban by Beijing on lows to toothbrushes as the town aims to recy- imports has left plastic recyclables piling up in cle all its waste, sending nothing to incinera- parts of Japan. tors, by next year. The process can be oner- Still, not all residents think the initiative ous-not only are there dozens of separate cat- could work elsewhere. “It works because egories, but items like plastic bags and bottles we’re only 1,500 people here,” said must be washed and dried to facilitate recy- Yokoyama, who moved from Kyoto. “It would cling. At the town’s waste facility, there are be difficult in a big town with a larger popula- dozens of different boxes for each category. If tion,” she added, because authorities would the parts of an item fall into different cate- struggle to enforce it. Kazuyuki Kiyohara, manager of a waste center, placing gories for recycling, residents are expected to plastic waste into a compacting machine in the town of take them apart and send each bit to the right Reduce consumption Kamikatsu, Tokushima prefecture. container. But other residents say the policy is just One man who had brought in a shelf had to common sense. “I understand it’s convenient to use a hammer to prise the wood from the met- just burn waste,” said 71-year-old local Saeko al, while elsewhere workers chopped up a Takahashi, as she washed milk cartons and tied thick, long rubber tube so it would fit into a newspapers together. “It’s better to recycle, it’s sorting box. Many parts of Japan already such a waste otherwise,” she explained. She require separation of rubbish, but most areas uses a compost bin for food waste such as fish have just a few categories, with the bulk of and meat and throws vegetable waste directly household waste going to incinerators. into her garden. “Food lasts longer when it’s Town official Suga said even Kamikatsu will A stack of compacted shipped in plastic packaging. So it’s not all bad, struggle to achieve zero-waste without aluminum cans at a ‘Let’s recycle’ but multiple layers of plastic aren’t necessary,” stronger efforts to reduce consumption. She waste center in the town Kamikatsu was not much different until an added Takahashi. said: “We have made efforts to achieve zero of Kamikatsu, Tokushima ultimatum: in 2000, the town was ordered to Kazuyuki Kiyohara, manager of the waste incineration and zero landfill disposal goals, but prefecture. shut down one of its incinerators because it no centre, said plastic makes up the majority of it’s not enough.” She explained: “We shouldn’t longer met stricter emissions standards. That the residents’ waste-and despite the scheme focus just on how to dispose of trash. We need left the town with just one incinerator that there has been little reduction in consumption. to come up with policies that prevent the pro- couldn’t handle all of Kamikatsu’s waste, and “Our lifestyle depends mainly on plastic,” the duction of waste.” — AFP there wasn’t enough money for a new one or to 38-year-old said, adding: “Consumers can Workers sorting trash at a waste centre in the town of pay a neighboring town for use of theirs. “We reduce plastic waste to a certain extent, but Kamikatsu, Tokushima prefecture. thought, ‘If we can’t burn waste in the town, we’ll still have waste if producers keep making apan’s booming animation industry is in holds. Miyazaki blazed an arthouse trail with later this year will be on the release of crisis-with low pay, long hours and a huge such animated classics as the Oscar-winning “Weathering with You”, Makoto Shinkai’s fan- Jshortage of artists-just as its global popu- “Spirited Away”, “Howl’s Moving Castle” and tasy follow-up to the record-breaking “Your larity has never been higher. Three of the 10 the fabulous “My Neighbour Totoro”. Name”, now the highest-grossing Japanese feature films in the running for top prize at the film of all time. world’s most important animation festival in Creative burn-out Its production team unveiled a sneak pre- Annecy in France-which ends Saturday-are But Yoshiaki Nishimura, a former Miyazaki view of the supernatural story at Annecy, with from Japan. The country is the only real chal- stalwart who produced the Oscar-nominated a high-school runaway meeting a girl who can lenger to Hollywood’s dominance of the labor- “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya”, told AFP change the weather. With a live-action version intensive genre. But just as Japanese anime that the industry was struggling to “face up to of “Your Name” in the works and US televi- seemed to be threatening to loosen Pixar and a lack of animators, bad working conditions sion about to remake the cult Japanese series Disney’s grip on the popular imagination with and perhaps a lack of creativity”. His peers also “Train Man” about an anime-obsessed youth, the likes of the teen mega hit “Your Name” and complain of low pay, a paucity of emerging the genre has never been closer to the inter- a Nintendo Super Mario movie in the pipeline, young talent and burn-out in overworked ani- national mainstream. Nishimura said that he long-running structural problems are in danger mation teams who often put in 12- to 18-hour has tried to keep the “Ghibli style and spirit of sapping its rise. days. Rising star Keiichi Hara, who showed his going... with a mix of hand-drawn and com- new film “The Wonderland” at Annecy after puter animation” at Studio Ponoc, which he winning the jury prize there four years ago set up after Miyazaki-a heavy smoker who with “Miss Hokusai”, feared for the future. was having health problems-first hung up his A person watches a Virtual Reality movie in Annecy during “Perhaps the biggest problem in the pencil in 2013. the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Japanese animation industry is that there are no more young animators,” he warned. Ayumu New surfer story a hit Watanabe-whose beautiful “The Children of It scored its first hit in 2017 with “Mary and the Sea” was shown out of competition at the the Witch’s Flower” and Nishimura premiered a festival-worried about visual “standardisation” series of new shorts at Annecy. For him, the and lack of originality, not helped by the fact industry’s woes are “the result of an accumula- that “fewer and fewer animators can draw well tion of problems over the last five to 10 years”, by hand.” but he insisted his studio was trying to “create Even industry heavyweights like Mamoru a new environment”. And as the wowed audi- Hosoda, the genius behind “Wolf Children”, ences at Annecy for Masaaki Yuasa’s touching “The Boy and the Beast” and “The Girl who “Ride Your Wave” proved, despite its problems Leapt Through Time”, have to put in punish- Japanese anime can still get things very right. ingly long hours with relatively tiny teams. He The story of love, surfing and grief struck a told AFP last year that his latest hit “Mirai” was huge cord with critics at the French festival. inspired by his wife complaining that she was a Amel Lacombe, whose company Eurozoom is a widow to his work, calling him to account for key French animation distributor, said the leaving her “to bring up my son on her own”.