Container And Packaging: Fill & Download for Free

Ah yes, the trash separation thing in Japan can be difficult to sort out. Rubbish sorting is be a major pain in the sit upon, until you get used to it, then it almost becomes second nature. Almost. It is not just foreigners that find the rules confusing, Japanese find the rules complicated as well. The major difference is that they have had a number of years in dealing with the Recycling a la Japon. They know it because they have done it hundreds of times. In fact, they start by doing the recycling thing in pre-school. They also have the advantage of being, well, Japanese, and thus better versed in the Byzantine ways of Japanese life.Japanese Trash Talk -The 1950’s and 60’s saw the usual [sad] story of rapid economic growth done without sufficient care or planning as to the environmental impacts such increases were bound to bring about. The resulting environmental problems ranged from the dark comedy of landfill islands catching fire, to the deeply tragic of the Minamata Disease. The 1970’s saw major revisions to previous laws and the establishment of a sub-cabinet level Environmental Agency (The cabinet level Ministry of the Environment, 環境省 Kankyō-shō, was established in 2001 https://www.env.go.jp/index.html). Environmental protection and public health assumed a greater standing under the new laws. Basically, waste management became public, and therefore political, issue. Not surprisingly, the 1970’s also saw a significant rise in the national subsidies for waste management facilities.The 1980’s ushered in another time of expansive economic growth. Often referred to as the Bubble Economy, this period also saw dramatic increases in municipal and industrial waste; particularly in the area of plastics. Burning plastic is problematic at best and downright toxic at worst. In short, Japan didn’t have the land fill or incinerators to deal with the municipal and industrial waste generated. The landfill shortage, dioxin and other nasty emissions from incinerators, the rise in throw away consumer durables, along with the ever present illegal dumping caused a rethinking of the waste management model they had been operating from.The 1990’s saw a shift from a mass consumption, mass production, mass disposal model to one that placed a greater emphasis and promotion of a cyclic economy wherein the 3Rs of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle were granted pride of place. The 1990’s and into the 2000’s saw laws passed in this area, and there were many, aimed at reducing natural resource consumption and lessening the environmental impact of those things that must be disposed of. As our question concerns the convoluted rules around trash separation, I will leave out a discussion of the industrial side of the story. I will also skip the disposal procedures for consumer durables, batteries, light bulbs, etc..Let us pick up the story of Japan’s household trash in the 1990’s. Up to this time most of Japan’s communities operated on the binary method of trash separation: burnable / non-burnable. Apartment buildings have their trash areas, as do neighborhoods. A typical schedule might have burnables on Wednesdays and Sundays, with non-burnables on Mondays and Thursdays. I must admit that when I first came to Japan in the early 1980’s, I was surprised that recycling was not more widely practiced. Perhaps coming from Berkeley, which had recycling since the 1970’s, made me more aware. That said, I seem to remember that aluminum cans and beer bottles were recycled when I first came in the 1980’s.Starting in the 1990’s the trash disposal and recycling policies and systems underwent a series of changes that have never really stopped being modified. The 1990’s saw several laws passed that would effect the way households dealt with their trash. Of the many laws, acts, and revisions passed the Containers and Packaging Recycling Act of 1995 is the one that probably most concerns our story. Like many laws concerned with civil life, the Japanese government asked several communities to act as [recycling] test cases for the pending law. Then the ministries concerned looked at the test cases and modified things so that the law, when passed, was one that would not cause too much disruption and be relatively assured of success. At the same time various foundations (NPOs) were created to monitor the situation, rationalize the process, freeze out competition, provide lucrative jobs to former bureaucrats, and become revenue streams for politicians.The Containers and Packaging Recycling Act and its subsequent revisions targeted: steel cans, aluminum cans, glass bottles, cardboard, paper cartons, paper containers and packaging, plastic bottles, plastic containers and packaging. The Act put the responsibility for sorting the trash with the consumer, the responsibility for collection with the municipality, and the responsibility for recycling on business operators. The business operators do so under the guidance of the NPOs.What this means for the household is that they are asked to separate their trash into several categories (basically the list above) with a few more sub categories for some items. For example, glass bottles will have sub categories for color. The basic burnable / non-burnable bifurcation still holds, but there are now several categories added to each.All of this can be extremely confusing to the foreigner. The posters the municipality give out detailing what and how you are supposed to do the sorting thing are often poorly written and designed. My advice it to take the poster and look at it from a slightly oblique angle; put it on the table next to your ramen; carry it around with you on the train; have it by your desk at work, put it on the door of the toilet. Whatever you do, don’t study it. If you study it, it will become impenetrable. If you just have it around, neither hidden, nor in direct line of sight, a day will come when its inner workings will be revealed, satori like, to you. Once you have undergone the ‘awakening’ of trash separation enlightenment, you will be able to achieve a calmness, an inner peace, when you separate your trash.Ooommmmm.

Its not something that gets brought up in Canon Star Trek is it! But, among my vast library of Star Trek Technical materials, I did find an answer in the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual, [ISBN: 0–671–704273],which specifically addresses the USS Enterprise-D. I will summarize for you!Water and Sewage Recycling: Wastewater and Sewage is treated through a process of mechanical filtration to remove solids and particulates. Osmotic and electrolytic fractioning is then used to remove dissolved and microscopic contaminants for treatment and recycling. The resulting water is then super-heated to 150°C for biological sterilization, subject to a final mechanical filtration, then returned to freshwater storage for reuse.The solids and particulates removed from the water, (reffered to as waste sludge), is subject to sterilizing heat and radiation treatments. The sludge is then electrolytically reprocessed into an organic particulate that serves as the raw material for the food synthesizer systems. Remaining byproducts are conveyed to the solid waste processing system.Solid Waste Recycling: Solid waste such as trash is processed through scanning, classification, and separation. Items like articles of clothing, packaging, containers, and small personal articles. They are sterilized, then reduced to a recyclable form, such as processed fiber packets for fabricating clothing and uniforms. Items classified as Hazardous, is separated from the solid waste.Matter Replication Recycling: Material that can not be directly recycled is stored for matter synthesis recycling. This is done by special replicators than can dematerialize waste materials and rematerialize them into desired objects or materials. Its designed to cut down on use of raw materials.Hazardous Waste Recycling: 5% of all liquid and solid wastes are considered to be hazardous under toxicity, reactivity, biohazard, or radioactivity standards. They are diverted to a special matter replicator which converts them to inert carbon particles, which is then stored for matter replication recycling.

Original question:“If we switched all plastic bottles to glass bottles, would this help the environment?”When I was a kid in New York State, glass soda bottles had a deposit value of 2 cents for a small bottle and a whopping nickel for the large ones at a time when minimum wage for an adult worker was less than $1.00/hour.Kids went door to door and collected the bottles. Saturdays were very profitable.I can guarantee that very few bottles ended up in the trash.Glass bottles and jars are 100% recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without any loss in purity or quality.The container and fiberglass industries collectively purchase 3.35 million tons of recycled glass annually, which is remelted and repurposed for use in the production of new containers and fiberglass products. (Sources: Precision Consulting, NAIMA)Over a ton of natural resources are saved for every ton of glass recycled.Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10% cullet used in the manufacturing process.One ton of carbon dioxide is reduced for every six tons of recycled container glass used in the manufacturing process.There are 44 glass manufacturing plants operating in 21 states. There are 63 glass beneficiating facilties (aka "glass processing" plants) in 30 states. At the glass processing plants, recycled glass is further cleaned and sorted to spec, then resold to the glass container manfuacturing companies for remelting into new food and beverage containers.In 2013, 41.3% of beer and soft drink bottles were recovered for recycling, according to the U.S. EPA. Another 34.5% of wine and liquor bottles and 15% of food and other glass jars were recycled. In total, 34% of all glass containers were recycled, equivalent to taking 210,000 cars off the road each year.States with container deposit legislation have an average glass container recycling rate of just over 63%, while non-deposit states only reach about 24%, according to the Container Recycling Institute.Beverage container deposit systems provide 11 to 38 times more direct jobs than curbside recycling systems for beverage containers. (Source: The Container Recycling Institute, "Returning to Work: Understanding the Jobs Impacts from Different Methods of Recycling Beveage Containers").About 18% of beverages are consumed on premise, like a bar, restaurant, or hotel. And glass makes up to about 80% of that container mix.In 2008, NC passed a law requiring all Alcohol Beverage Permit holders to recycle their beverage containers. Since then, they have boosted the amount of glass bottles recovered for recycling from about 45,000 tons/year before the ABC law to more than 86,000 tons in 2011.Glass bottles have been reduced in weight approximately 40% over the past 30 years.Recycled glass is substituted for up to 95% of raw materials.Manufacturers benefit from recycling in several ways—it reduces emissions and consumption of raw materials, extends the life of plant equipment, such as furnaces, and saves energy.An estimated 80% of all glass containers recovered for recycling are remelted in furnaces, and used in the manufacture of new glass containers. Source, Strategic Materials, Inc.Recycling 1,000 tons of glass creates slightly over 8 jobs. (Source: 2011 Container Recycling Institute).Glass Recycling Facts | Glass Packaging Institute