Kamikatsu: Japan's 45-Category Zero Waste Town

After a backyard-incinerator ban forced a rethink, the rural town of Kamikatsu on Japan's Shikoku island declared Japan's first Zero Waste goal in 2003 and set up the nonprofit Zero Waste Academy to run it. Residents bring their own waste to a central Zero Waste Center, hand-sorting everything from bottle caps to chopsticks into 45 separate categories for recycling, reuse or composting, since the town has no household trash collection or incinerator. The Academy also runs a free reuse shop, an upcycling craft workshop, and consulting and tours that have made Kamikatsu a global model for zero-waste municipalities.