David Dungate*, Toshihiko Matsuto*, Nobutoshi Tanaka* and Aleck Ostry**

* Department of Environmental and Sanitary Engineer-ing Hokkaido University
** Department of Healthcare and Epidemiology, Univer-sity of British Columbia, CanadaAbstract

+ Correspondence should be addressed to Toshihiko Matsuto:
(N13, W8, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060 Japan)

Abstract

A comparative case study investigated the factors influencing residential waste recycling in North America and Japan. A mail survey sent to household heads in Vancouver, Canada and Sapporo, Japan investigated recycling motivations and recycling activities. These cities were chosen for comparison due to their common status as regional centers in their respective countries, and their similar residential waste generation and recycling rates. Various descriptive and analytic statistics were used to analyze the data. The survey results indicate that citizens in both Sapporo and Vancouver share similar motivational structures for recycling. Altruistic environmental reasons (e.g. conserving natural resources) were the main motivation for recycling, and system limitations (e.g. no pick-up service in the neighborhood) were the main motivation for not recycling. The slight differences which did exist between recycling motivations in Vancouver and Sapporo were attributed to differences in the respective cities recycling systems rather than cultural differences between Canada and Japan. These results indicate that governments in both Japan and North America should strive to develop convenient recycling programs which appeal to altruistic environmental motivations.

Key words: Japan, Canada, Residential Waste Recycling, Recycling Motivations