No.1

In Japan, we throw away over 400 million tons of waste per year, about a tenth of which comes from households and offices.

It means that we throw away about one kilogram of waste for each person per day.

In a society of mass production and mass consumption, we throw away a huge amount.

In the near future, the day may come when we will have to live buried in waste.

Environmental problems including too much waste are taken up in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in 2015.

Among the 17 goals, Goal 12 is “Responsible Consumption and Production” and it requires us to take action to “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.”

Not only Japan but the whole world is now taking measures to pursue a sustainable society.

Surprisingly, people in the Edo period (1603-1867) actually achieved such a society.

At that time, almost every resource was recycled, which reduced damaged to the environment to a minimum.

Let’s take a closer look at life in the Edo period.

Clothes were so precious and expensive then that ordinary people bought old clothes from secondhand dealers or recycled their clothes for other purposes.

Worn-out clothes were reused as floor cloths, and finally burned to ashes.

Even the ash was used as fertilizer, used in dyes and detergents, or sold to ash buyers.

The buyers then sold the ash to farmers as fertilizer.

As for paper, people used it many times and then sold it to used paper buyers.

These buyers resold it to paper makers, who made it into recycled paper.

In addition, used paper collectors walked around towns picking up waste paper to sell to used paper buyers.

Printed paper, on the other hand, was passed on from one generation to another.

According to records, one arithmetic textbook in a terakoya (temple school) was used for over 100 years.

When household articles were broken, they were never thrown away but repaired by specialized craftsmen.

For instance, tinkers repaired old pans, kettles, and pots.

Ceramic repairers fixed broken dishes and bowls with glue.

Various kinds of buyers, repairers, and collectors were engaged in reuse and recycling.

One of the most unique examples was the metal collectors who walked around the town, singing, “Let’s exchange, let’s exchange.”

They offered small toys and candies to children in return for old nails and other pieces of metal the children found while they were playing.

You may be surprised to know that people in the Edo period even recycled human waste.

In those days, human waste was the most important fertilizer source for farmers.

Farmers regularly visited homes and paid money, or offered vegetables they had grown, in return for human waste.

Later, human waste retailers appeared and bought human waste from city dwellers to sell to farmers.

Although recycling was practiced fully throughout society, there was no word for recycling because it was just a normal part of life.

Moreover, recycling had the advantageous effect of creating many kinds of jobs.

It is said that there was little unemployment in the Edo period.

Thanks to the recycling-based society in the Edo period, Japan improved both the environment and people’s lives.

In fact, the nation changed dramatically during that period.

At the start of the Edo period, many trees were cut down in the mountains for timber.

As a consequence, many floods occurred and large areas along rivers were damaged.

That prevented Japan from expanding agricultural production for a growing population.

Japan barely managed to feed its growing population of 12 million people using all of the cultivable land available.

However, in the Edo period, two hundred years later, the situation had changed greatly.

The population had increased by two and a half times, but the environment showed little sign of getting any worse.

Deforestation had been stopped and forests came to life again.

After flooding had decreased, farmland was extended and made more productive.

Conservation efforts were made in all parts of society, both urban and rural.

Overall living standards had risen and the people were better fed and healthier.

By any objective standard, it was a remarkable achievement to be found nowhere else, before or since.

Why was the recycling-based society in the Edo period so successful?

In those days, Japan had to be self-sufficient in all aspects of life because of the national policy of isolation.

There being very limited goods and materials in the country, the people needed to recycle what they had.

Everything was treated as a valuable resource, and a variety of traders helped recycle anything that was needed in society.

Furthermore, the mentality of the people at that time played an important role in developing the recycling-based society.

They respected modesty and hated to waste things.

This way of thinking came from an understanding of how nature works and what its limits are.

The people found satisfaction in their simple lives, in which they took just enough from nature and not more.

We cannot return to the Edo period or live in the same way that people lived then.