【Special Issues: The Basic Plan for Establishing a Recycling-Based Society】

Overview of the Basic Plan for Establishing a Recycling-Based Society
Kenji Someno
Office of Establishing a Recycling-Based Society, Waste management and Recycling Department, Ministry of the Environment
（1-2-2 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8975 Japan）


Abstract
To shift from a one-way-use society to a recycling-based society, the Basic Law for Establishing a Recycling-Based Society was enacted in May 2000. In this law, “Recycling-Based Society” defines a society where the consumption of natural resource is kept at a low level and the environmental load is reduced as much as possible by preventing products from becoming waste, promoting the appropriate recycling of products, and securing appropriate disposal. Based on the law, the Government of Japan formulated “The Basic Plan for Establishing a Recycling-Based Society” in a Cabinet decision on March 2003. The purpose of the plan is to promote comprehensive and systematic policies for establishing a recycling-based society. Furthermore, the plan serves as a ten-year program aimed at changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption into sustainable ones based on the Plan of Implementation of the WSSD, which was established in September 2002. The plan shows the image of a Recycling-Based Society and some quantitative targets for three indicators based on material flow accounts: resource productivity, cyclical use rate and final disposal amount, and for effort indices including the amounts of garbage discharged from households per person per day.


Key words: the Basic Plan for Establishing a Recycling-Based Society, recycling-based society, material flow accounts, resource productivity, sustainable production and consumption