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The story
In July, the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which handles waste processing for Osaka City and surrounding areas, announced that its storage space for garbage awaiting incineration was nearly full. By August the situation had escalated to the point where neighboring Sakai City was asked to handle some of the household waste, and in September Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama called on residents to help by sorting and reducing their garbage. On 5ch, a thread kicked off with the question of why more incineration plants aren’t being built, and commenters raised the 2012 consolidation of incineration plants from nine down to six under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, along with the fact that Osaka City’s household garbage output is actually below the national average. Opinions split over whether administrative efficiency or maintaining a safety margin should take priority.
Sat, Sep 12, 12:10 PM
ABEMA TIMES
In September, Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama called on residents to cooperate in sorting and reducing garbage. It was back in July that the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which processes household waste for Osaka City and surrounding municipalities, announced that its storage space for waste was nearly full because incineration couldn’t keep pace. By August, the situation had escalated to the point of asking neighboring Sakai City to handle some of the household waste.
Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here
What people said
Do you have any idea how much it costs to add just one more facility?
Because there's no space.
In 2012, as part of administrative reforms under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, Osaka City consolidated its garbage incineration plants from 9 down to 6.
I guess it was meant to save money, but it backfired.
Tokyo does the same thing, passing the buck to other areas too.
"Furthermore, Mr. Fuchigami revealed that he only learned of this dire situation the day before he became council chairman.
'The department manager told me the day before that there was "a matter to report" and that no questions would be taken. It's strange to be told the day before about something that's been known for over six months, and then not even be allowed to ask questions,' he pointed out.
As a result, he says an extraordinary session of the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association assembly was held on July 31, after he took office as chairman.
'There was a lack of communication between Osaka City's Environment Bureau and the association. I've heard that even Mayor Yokoyama was only informed at the last minute,' he said."
Sounds like Osaka City's bureaucrats just suck at their jobs.
Yokoyama's just playing dumb — this has been brought up in city council for years.
Problem solved — just bury it in your backyard.
Toyonaka City already does that.
Looked it up — turns out there are no paid garbage bags there.
Apparently even a convenience store bag is fine as long as the contents are visible.
Even for landfill, you have to incinerate it first to shrink the volume.
Expanding the city's boundaries
would actually be the most rational path for urban development,
but there are people who just don't get that (lol)
They're already reclaiming land offshore in Osaka Bay.
> I've heard that even Mayor Yokoyama was only informed at the last minute
There's no way that report didn't reach Mayor Yokoyama, who is also the administrator of the joint public body.
The Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association was established in 2015 as a partial affairs association.
Osaka City, Yao City, Matsubara City, and Moriguchi City — all four have Ishin (Osaka Restoration Association) mayors.
Seven of the eight incineration plants are in Osaka City, the remaining one in Yao.
Way too unbalanced, and on top of that Moriguchi City has closed its own plant.
Ever since Mayor Hashimoto, all you can say is the planning has been way too naive.
They probably pushed things a bit too hard to cut administrative costs, as a talking-point achievement for Ishin.
On top of that, several unexpected setbacks piled up, and now things are genuinely stretched to the breaking point.
Guess it just shows that infrastructure needs some redundancy — costs that look wasteful at first glance but actually matter.
Those don't go to the incinerator anyway, do they?
According to the article, the amount of garbage hasn't actually increased.
Apparently it's the result of maintenance work and equipment breakdowns piling up together.
Where I live, they collect it with a flatbed truck, so now you can put it out on glass-bottle collection day — that way, even if it explodes, the damage is minimized.
My municipality started collecting them last year.
They'll take them whether they're swollen (jokingly called "pregnant" batteries), missing the recycling mark, or just a bare cell.
Guess it'll be finished in three years or so.
> Osaka residents produce about 344g of household garbage per day, compared to the national average of about 466g — they're already doing well.
If you believe the numbers, Osaka households are already working pretty hard at reducing waste.
It's not the administration's fault, it's a misjudgment by the citizens of Osaka Prefecture.
They pushed too hard for efficiency without allowing the administration any margin for slack.
They don't get that an administration with zero waste can't cope with even the slightest change.
Why is that?
S P E C I A L – Z O N E A I R B N B s (minpaku home-stay rentals)
Osaka City's per-capita garbage output is actually lower than the national average, though…
Background and Key Points of Debate
The Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which handles waste processing for Osaka City, was established in 2015 as a partial affairs association made up of Osaka City, Yao City, Matsubara City, and Moriguchi City. Of its eight incineration plants, seven are currently located within Osaka City, while Moriguchi City has already closed its own facility. In 2012, under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, the incineration plants were consolidated from nine down to six as part of administrative reforms, and many commenters pointed to this consolidation as an underlying cause of the current crunch. At the same time, data showing that “Osaka residents produce about 344g of household garbage per day, below the national average of 466g” also came up, lending weight to the view that the real problem isn’t a rise in garbage volume but a lack of spare capacity (redundancy) in the facilities. The pattern of prioritizing efficiency only to lose the ability to respond to unexpected situations is a theme that comes up across administrative cost-cutting in general.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Osaka City] Garbage processing under strain, storage space in an “abnormal” full state… burden of maintaining facilities also rising. How can garbage be reduced? Japan’s “new policy” needed.”
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