Japan's deputy environment minister has called for reduction in burning plastic

Japan's recycling "needs to gradually shift to other forms of recycling than thermal recycling" and is particularly concerned about the growing amount of plastic waste being incinerated, a deputy environment minister said.

According to the Tokyo plastics recycling association, 84 per cent of discarded plastic is currently claimed for recycling, with about 10 per cent being incinerated as "garbage" and the rest being landfill.

However, chengcheng said at a press conference that "recycling" does not mean that all the materials are recycled through mechanical processing.More than 65% of the waste plastics in these materials are treated by some kind of thermal recovery, 27% by mechanical processing, and the remaining 5% by chemical recycling.
Since Japan's strong economic growth has been accompanied by a rise in waste production and the disposal of excess capacity of landfills, the call to reduce the incineration of discarded plastics makes sense.The city said it hoped Japan would now follow Europe's lead in reining in waste heat treatment, as leading recycling nations like Belgium have done.His appeal was also supported by hidetoshi takada, a professor at Tokyo a&m university."We should stop building more incinerators," Mr Takada said.In addition to affecting recycling rates, Japan's continued use of burning waste is also a cause of global warming.