Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is the capital of Japan and the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with over 36.7 million people according to the 2009 United Nations World Urban Prospects report. Since its founding in 1603, Tokyo has been the center of Japanese politics and commerce, maintaining a high population density. The most common practice of waste management in Tokyo is incineration for volume reduction, followed by final disposal of combustion products to landfills. Some of the larger landfills are located in Tokyo Bay and are continuing to reclaim land from the sea. It is estimated that residents of Tokyo generate about 807 pounds (lbs) of solid waste per person per year, which is less than the industrialized countries average of 1,279 lbs per person per year and less than half of the United States, average of 1,676 lbs. Since the peak in the late 1980s, this number has declined steadily under the central planning of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which aims to transform Tokyo into a sound material-recycling society. Source reduction, reuse of products and materials, and thermal recycling are encouraged. Two key features of Japanese waste management practice, the proximity principle and the top-down decision-making process, have added an extra layer of complexity to waste management in Tokyo.

Tokyo is not a city. The term Tokyo refers to the Tokyo Metropolis, one of the 47 prefectures in Japan. It is also used to describe the Greater Tokyo Area, an urban planning unit including three other prefectures around Tokyo Metropolis: Chiba, Kanagawa, and Saitama. The Tokyo Metropolis prefecture houses 13 million people, or 10 percent of the total population of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolis is further divided into three regions: the Twenty-Three Special Wards Region, the Tama Region, and the Island Region. In Tama and Island regions, there are 26 cities, five towns, and eight villages. As specified in Article 5 of the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Law, the Tokyo metropolitan government has the authority to establish a Waste Management Plan in line with basic policy set by the Ministry of Environment. Each municipality is responsible for formulating a Municipal Solid Waste Management Plan under the central planning of the Tokyo metropolitan government. However, the Twenty-Three Special Wards Region has autonomy to control and administer waste collection and processing operations independently.