Solid Waste Management in Japan

摘要

Japan consists of four main islands and more than 6,800 smaller islands. With a total land area of 377,719 square kilometers, Japan accounts for less than 0.3 % of the total land area of the world. Of its entire land area, 73% is mountainous and remaining 27% is relatively flat. Thus the arable and habitable land is extremely limited. The population of Japan as of 1 October 1998 was 126 million, ranking eighth in the world (China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, and Japan), and about 2.1% of the world population. The population density in 1998 was 335 persons/sq · km; Japan is the fourth most densely populated country among the countries with more than 5 million people. Since Japan has limited area of flat land, its population density in terms of habitable land area is far higher. Besides, about 23 % of the persons live in the eleven major cities; Tokyo Metropolitan Area (11.7 million), Yokohama (3.4 million), Osaka (2.5 million), Nagoya (2.1 million) , Sapporo (1.8 million), Kobe (1.5 million), Kyoto (1.4 million) , Fukuoka (1.3 million) , Kawasaki (1.2 million), Hiroshima (1.1 million) and Kita-kyusyu (1.0 million). In these areas the population densities are extremely high. On a per capita basis, General Domestic Products (GDP) of Japan amounted to 30,046 US $ in 1998, ranking in the seventh in the world.