0177 Extreme Recycling

Singing the recycling blues because you have to separate your chipboard from your newspaper, your steel from your aluminum, your #1 from your #2 plastic? Pantywaists! The residents of Kamikatsu, Japan have no fewer than 34 categories into which they must sort their recyclables. And there are a lot of rules, too: all bottles, cans and plastic wrap must be washed and newspapers must be tied with twine made from recycled milk cartons. Chopsticks are recycled into paper; cooking oil becomes fertilizer; food scraps get composted. Right now, Kamikatsu has an amazing 80% recycling rate. Impressive, yes but not good enough for the die-hard Kamikatsuites. Their goal: a Zero G environment. Zero G for Zero Garbage. #hacker #japan #ceas