The area near Tokyo Bay (©Clean Association of Tokyo 23)

Aqua City Odaiba (©Aqua City Odaiba)

waste-procesing plant

Underground pipes at a waste-processing center in Ariake. (©Clean Association of Tokyo 23)

Tokyo Eco-Recycle

Electrical appliances are disassembled. (©Tokyo Eco Recycle Co., Ltd)

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Repair and recycling were important business activities in Edo.

Located on the shore of Tokyo Bay mainly on reclaimed land, the Odaiba area is one of Tokyo's newest neighborhoods. It is also the capital's newest tourist hotspot, luring over 37 million visitors each year with its modern shopping and entertainment attractions. But this new section of town has roots that go way back: The earth-friendly traditions of the Edo period (1603-1868) are carried on to this day in Odaiba, an area where being kind to the environment is a way of business and life.

A Place Both New and Old
A trip to Odaiba today will bring you to Odaiba Seaside Park, a shore so peaceful you might forget you are in the heart of Tokyo. The park's observation deck affords a view of Tokyo Tower - at 333 meters, the world's tallest free-standing metal tower - and other skyscrapers of Japan's capital. Also visible is the graceful Rainbow Bridge, another symbol of modern Tokyo. On weekends these modern structures provide the backdrop for windsurfers, beachgoers, and crowds of people out for a walk. A natural hot spring has been discovered in Odaiba, and in 2003 the waters will open to the public in a 24-hour hot-spring-themed park.

Odaiba has a long history behind these modern shopping and entertainment conveniences. The area was first developed in the late Edo period, after US Commodore Matthew Perry's 1853 arrival in the "black ships" that heralded the opening of Japan after its long national seclusion. The Tokugawa government made Odaiba - more accurately Daiba, meaning "fort" or "battery" - the site of an artillery installation protecting the Edo (now Tokyo) shore from naval invasion. Developers in Odaiba today are striving to maintain not only this name from an older age but many concepts of environmental stewardship that were in place hundreds of years ago, as they bring fresh life to the area.

Taking It Easy on the Earth
Aqua City Odaiba, a huge shopping center, is one of the main attractions in the area today, attracting countless people each year. But this center manages to be friendly to the Earth even while it opens its doors to these hordes of shoppers. Taking a cue from the old city of Edo, where all raw waste material was reused in some form, this shopping center has succeeded in achieving this total recycling in the Tokyo of today. About two tons of biodegradable waste come out of Aqua City Odaiba's restaurants and other shops each day. This waste is all sent to a composting plant where it is biodegraded and turned into fertilizer. This is in turn shipped to fertilizer manufacturers, who distribute it to food producers, at last bringing the cycle back to consumers' plates in the form of agricultural produce.

Nonbiodegradable waste, meanwhile, is shot through pneumatic pipes to a waste-processing plant in nearby Ariake - the first in Japan to be hooked up to an extensive network of underground pipes collecting rubbish from the surrounding area. Heat produced in waste processing at this plant is captured and stored for use in climate-control systems at the Ariake Sports Center and at other facilities around Odaiba. These energy-recycling efforts are bolstered by the many buildings in the area that come complete with solar energy and a wide range of energy-reuse systems.

The list of recycling systems goes on and on in Odaiba. Used cooking oil is collected and refined for further use; Styrofoam is not discarded but heated and compressed to make raw plastic, which is then shipped to chemical manufacturers for use in new products. Tokyo Eco-Recycle, another company in the area, collects discarded computers, refrigerators, washing machines, and other large appliances, disassembling them and reusing or recycling their parts and materials. What is so surprising about all this? All these operations are modern echoes of practices that were in place in the Edo period.

Centuries of Recycling
In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had consolidated his rule over all Japan three years earlier, took up residence in his castle in Edo, making the town Japan's political center. The population of the city grew sharply, and by the early eighteenth century Edo was home to over a million people. But despite its status as one of the world's largest cities, contemporary documents describe this metropolis as a beautiful, trash-free place. Laws forbade the discarding of garbage in rivers. Trash was brought to collection centers located around town and disposed of systematically. This garbage became fertilizer for vegetable fields and made its way back to the tables of Edo inhabitants - a total recycling society of the sort that Odaiba aims to be today.

Sewage systems in old Edo were the most advanced in the world. Night soil was a valuable commodity, collected by traders who brought it to farmers for use as fertilizer and returned to town with vegetables for sale. There was also a booming market in second-hand goods, with craftsmen gathering old clothes, umbrellas, and such, repairing them, and selling them for reuse; cloth was an especially valuable commodity, and kimonos were taken apart, resewn, and used for generations. This conscientious reuse of goods is yet another practice mirrored in Odaiba today.

Tokyo Bay is today ringed with "islands of trash" - like Odaiba, reclaimed land built on landfills and developed for industrial or residential use. Soon after the end of the Edo period these shoreline areas were being outfitted with piers for shipping, and in the twentieth century their use as waste-disposal sites was in full swing. Odaiba, today the most popular of these reclaimed shoreline spots, rests atop earth removed from construction sites and the wreckage of old buildings. The town itself is built on a base of recycled material. In more ways than one, recycling is providing the foundation for the boom of the new city center in Odaiba and the new lifestyles that are taking form there. Look closely at the modern bustle of the businesses and pleasure-seekers in Odaiba: You can see a long history of recycling and reusing resources if you know where to look.