Residential solid waste generation and recycling

In this paper, the definition of solid waste, typical composition of municipal solid waste (MSW), and brief analysis of solid waste amount in Japan are presented. Despite of abundant data on MSW, which is collected by an annual nation-wide survey, solid waste flow is not well understood. A clear distinction between two waste sources - household and business/commercial sector - is important. As for household or residential waste, the author estimated waste stream starting from “potential waste”, which citizen doesn’t need anymore and which can be sent either to an waste disposal facility or to a recycling destination. Finally, current situation of material recycling in Japan was overviewed.