Hakue Egawa

(Bureau Director, Tokyo Santama Area Regional Association of Waste Disposal)

Abstract

The Tama area is located on the outskirts of the western part of the Tokyo Metropolis and is composed of 32 municipalities. It has about 3.6 million people, one third population as Tokyo's. It was an agricultural area with copses and farms unitil 30 years ago, but through rapid urbanization, the most part of North Tama has become housing sites. As a consequence of the concentration of both populations and industry to the Tama area, the volume of refuse has tended to increase steadily. For disposing of increasing refuse year by year, 25 cities and 2 towns in the Tama made the Yatozawa Wide-Area Dumping Site in Hinode-town nearly 7 years ago. Efforts should be made to reduce and to reuse waste so that the dumping site may be used as long as possible. At the same time, sufficient consideration should be given to decisively embark on finding new final dumping site, paying attention to environmental protection and in consultation with related organizations and local governments.

Key words: final disposal site