Lessons from

the Kawasaki Eco-Town

Special Advisor to the Mayor of Kawasaki for International Environmental Policy

President of Research Institute for Environment and Society

SABURO KATO
E-mail: kato@kanbun.org
 1. About the city of Kawasaki

Narita
Airport

Tokyo Metropolitan

Haneda
Airport

Yokohama Chiba
Prefecture
City Kawasaki
City
Population (2005): 1.3 million
Area: 144ｋ㎡
GDP (2000): 4.6 trillion yen
Shipment Value(2004)：3.85 trillion yen Kawasaki⇒Narita Airport 90min
Cargo Volume（1996：105 millions tons) Kawasaki⇒Haneda Airport 15min
Percentage of R&D Researchers (2002)：
4.73％ of the total population
（23 thousands people）
 1. About the city of Kawasaki

•Steel / Petrochemical / Cement / Stainless / Food /

Paper / Power / Electronic / Computer / R&D
Hitachi
Fujitsu
NEC

神明电机 Ajinomoto

Sanyo Asahi
Mitsubishi Kasei
Fuso

Toshiba YAKIN
IBM
临海部
Syowadenko Kao

Nishin
Petrochemical
JFE Steel
 2. What is “Eco-Town”?

• The Eco-Town policy first introduced in Japan

in 1997.
• Not simply an ecological town , but a town where
economy and environment are integrated
 2. What is “Eco-Town”?

• In kawasaki, a variety of good examples

are shown in such companies as:
- JFE (Steel) & Showa-denko(chemical)
-Ajinomoto(food)
-NEC(electric)
-Corelex(paper)
-DC(cement), YAKIN (stainless)
 ① Waste exchanges-JFE Group-

Waste Plastics Waste Plastics Home Waste PET

Appliance
(General Wastes) (Industrial Wastes)

Raw material for

NF Board blast furnace Irons Flake of recycled
PET

Construction Steel Manufacturing Sales

Site Source : 「JFE のリサイクル事業」より作成
 ② Waste Exchanges –Corelex group-

Sewage Treatment Center Reuse of

waste water
(household)

Paper Product Process

Office Paper Product

Water treatment
Confidential
document

paper bag
Metals Sludge Small scale
hydropower
Hard-to-Recycle 75kW
Papers Steel Cement
COD20mｌ
Company Company
 3. What factors did push the city to an “Eco-Town”?

(1) A sense of crisis was prevailing in 1990s because of the rapid

down-turn of the national and local economy.

(2) Private companies invested funds in technological development,

management innovations and environmental management to meet
the requirement of new era (especially 3R and CO2 reduction).

(3) The national and municipal government gave the highest priority
environmental issues (especially 3R and CO2 reduction) .
・Containers and Packaging Recycling Law 1995
・COP3 : Kyoto Protocol 1997
・Home Appliance Recycling Law 1998
・Fundamental Law for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society 2000
 4. Achievement so far

General Waste Kawasaki Eco Town Industrial waste

C Press NIHON YAKIN
Kawasaki City Empty can 9,300t/y Kawasaki city
Stainless enterprise
Metallic Waste mass
Population: Automobile　 A Press
waste car 4,000t/y waste generation
1330 thousand scrap company JFE STEEL
companies:
Emission quantity： Discarded home Steel
Metallic 134
532,000t/y electronic JFE urban Emission quantity：
appliances Consumer electronic Surplus 4,634,000t/y
Plastic Blast furnace
recycling electricity
slag
N/A
waste
waste 570,000t/y Plastic
Plastic
SHOWA DENKO
Chemistry
D.C. sludge
Cement 28,000t/y

Soot
waste PET Rebirth Metallic
PET PET to PET Paper sludge waste
50t/y Slag
5,000t/y
CORELEX Cinder
waste Waste paper Paper
paper 70,000t/y
manufacture
Incineration ash
N/A
Sewage Kawasaki city Advanced processing water
sludge N/A Garbage collector
Sewage plant
Kawasaki City
Kawasaki City Outside
Usual garbage Incineration
other Landfill Landfill
300,000t/y facilities

Source: Prof. Fujita and his team

 4. Achievement so far

Raw
Pretreat Manufa-
material Transportation Circulation Consumption
-ment ‐cturing
mining
Effect of CO2 reduction
Virgin material 200,000 tons（Steel + Cement） Product
Ferroalloy 【141,000t/y】
Steel
Material recycling （Crude steel） 【30,100,000t/y】
facilities
In Eco Town Cement 【745 ,000t/y】
Iron one 【5,345,000t/y】 Stainless 【370,000t/y】
Toilet paper 【50,000t/y】

Coal 【4,713,000t/y】 ①JFE STEEL

②D.C. Waste
Lime stone 【1,852,000t/y】
③NIHON YAKIN
Other
Recycling raw material 【695,000t/y】 ④CORELEX

Recycled material
utilization rate
Local recycling 【1,382,000t/y】
14.9%
Local recycling rate
9.9%
 4. Achievement so far
GIS Data Base for Region, City and Eco-town System Design for Symbiotic Policies and
Technologies

Circulation symbiosis in eco-cement industry

Economic and Socio-economic Evaluation

Material Flow Analysis of Kawasaki Eco-town System

Source: Prof. Fujita and his team

5. UNEP Eco-Town Training Programme
 6. The Kawasaki 7-point Guiding Principles
for Building an Eco-Town in Asia

(1) Developing local authorities initiatives in providing

directions for sustainability by setting up necessary
regulations, economic incentives and capacity building
(2) Formulating national government frameworks to guide a
variety of sectors by setting up laws, plans, economic
instrument and international conventions (such as Kyoto
Protocol etc.)
(3) Ensuring industries’ continued willingness and
determination to pursue sustainable production and
consumption in their own business strategies
 6. The Kawasaki 7-point Guiding Principles
for Building an Eco-Town in Asia

(4) Facilitating active participation from civil communities

such as consumer, NGOs and mass media
(5) Activating strong will to change the “cost” of
environment management into valuable opportunities
and profits in the long run
(6) Collaborating with academic communities and financing
institutions such as banks and international aid
agencies
(7) Incorporating local traditional cultures and values in
building and implementing strategies for an Eco-Town