This weekend, my husband might have topped himself with the most unique adventure to date. We visited the local garbage incineration plant. While most people might turn their nose up at this opportunity, I found it to be incredibly intriguing. Disposing of waste in Japan is quite complex and has required a lot of energy to figure the system out. I knew that Japan burned it's garbage, and I was concerned about the harmful environmental effects of this practice. My brain was filled with images of all the nasty things being released into the environment from this practice.
Touring this facility would be informative and help me to understand exactly what they were doing. So, when he suggested the tour, I jumped at the chance.
The 2-hour tour began at 1:30. After lunch we hopped on our bikes and rode over to the plant. I was a little bit concerned about how my son would do with the tour, but since he loves garbage trucks (as most kids do), I wasn't THAT worried.
When we first rode up to the facility, I second guessed our destination more than once. It is a very nice building. It turns out that the Nerima facility is only 3 years old. It is the most state of the art facility in Tokyo Prefecture.
We hoofed it up to the second floor to find a nice entrance reminiscent of a museum. It was filled with information about the demolition of the previous plant and building of the new one. Since we arrived just before the tour was beginning, we didn't take the time to peruse it. Instead, we kept on walking down the hall to the meeting room.
Each person was handed a packet of paperwork. The adults received a detailed pamphlet, while the kids were given a simplified version. My son eagerly dug through his packet, checking out the pictures and pointing out interesting things.
The staff started the tour with a short video about the process of garbage incineration. I was amazed at how much I understood. My husband leaned over and translated a couple very interesting tidbits of information, but I really understood the gist of everything.
During the video, I glanced around to notice there were 16 adults and 6 children attending the tour. I was impressed with the turn out. Who would have guessed that we would be joined by so many people in our unique adventure? Once the video was done, we were divided into two group - one with families, and one with just adults - to walk through the facility.
Our group started by watching the trucks deliver the garbage. When the trucks enter the facility, they stop by the scale and then drive through an air curtain into the building. The air curtain keeps the smell in the building and prevents it from wafting into the neighborhood right outside.
The trucks then back up to doors that open into a huge holding tank. The trucks with the white cabs deliver garbage from private residence customers, while the trucks with blue cabs bring business garbage to the facility. I was amazed to learn that over 500 trucks bring over 600 tons of garbage to the plant each day. The back hatch of the truck lifts up and a lever pushed the garbage through the tall green doors.
After watching the dumping for a short time, we walked down the hall to see the waste bunker that holds all the dumped garbage. The kids were super excited to see the window that jutted out over the temporary holding container. It gave them a better view of all the garbage below, as well as the huge claw. The claw typically runs on a computer program that has it mostly mixing up the garbage to create even moisture and weight ratios within the huge pile. But three times an hour, the huge claw lifts 8 tons of garbage and drops it into the incinerator.
There's actually a second viewing place of the claw and the waste bunker. My son thought this new view was even better than the previous window and simply laid on the floor to watch as the claw dumped a load into the incinerator shoot.
We made several jokes as we stood at the window. Watching the claw do it's work, my husband kept whispering "The Claw! The Claw!" from the movie Toy Story into my ear. I, personally, thought the manual claw controls used on special occasions (like when trying to catch up after an incinerator has required maintenance performed; during these times, the autopilot is turned off and two claws are put into use) were especially funny. They looked like a kid's fantasy game station with two joysticks positioned with a seat in the middle.
We then walked on to find the incinerator. The guides pulled a curtain back and we walked into a hallway with fire projected onto the walls and a glass floor with a replica of the conveyor belt underneath. We learned that up to 24 tons of garbage is put into each of the two incinerators every hour. The waste journeys through the 800°C fire for 3-4 hours, turning it into a fine ash.
I was especially interested to learn that the ash, which is 1/20 the size of the garbage, is then trucked off to be turned into cement and a product called slag. Slag is melted down ash that is then used as civil engineering materials. They use the slag to build islands. I'm really not kidding. Kansai airport in Osaka was built on one of these islands.
All of this had me fascinated. I kept leaning over to my husband and we'd giggle at how interesting we found this tour to be. I have not been so fascinated about something in a really long time. The whole process was so interesting. I was learning so much!
Believe it or not, this wasn't the end! There was more! So, I will continue my tale tomorrow.
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