Ways of waste : practices and perceptions of waste and waste management in Tokyo

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Ways of Waste: Practices and Perceptions of Waste and

Waste Management in Tokyo

Daniel Sloman

Masters of Social and Cultural Anthropology

11181494

09/01/2016

Supervisor: Olga Sooudi

Second Reader: Tina Harris, Third Reader: Milena Veenis

Date of Submission: 09/01/2017

dslom001@gmail.com

Word Count: 16114

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Abstract

Boasting a 77.5% recycling rate for plastic bottles which is almost three times as much as the United States, Tokyo has been heralded as one of the most environmentally friendly cities due to its sustainable waste management system. This success is in large part due to how

effectively waste management is integrated into the lives of Tokyo’s residents; playing a prominent role in gender norms, child rearing techniques, patterns of consumption, and daily interactions. Contrary to this reputation, Japan is the second largest producer of plastic in the world and 80-90% of Tokyo’s plastic packaging is incinerated. To understand the affects of this institution on the lives of Tokyo’s residents, and how an unsustainable waste management system can be perceived as environmentally friendly on an international level, I examined the perceptions and practices of waste and waste management in Tokyo, Japan.

I will examine how bio-power, expressed as (mis)conceptions about waste management, is constructed within this pervasive institution; shaping practices, perceptions, and policies to neoliberal ends. To understand the basis of this institution, plastic waste, I examine ancient and modern notions of purity and pollution to explain Japan’s plastic packaging fetish and place this in the historical context of what Joy Hendry calls a wrapping culture. Since Japan’s ‘green revolution’ in 1993, Tokyo has been perceived and perceives of itself as an environmentally friendly city. Through multiple theories, observations, and interviews I seek to gain insight on how Japan became the second largest producer, consumer, and burner of plastic in the world while perceiving itself as reducing environmental impact and what this means for Tokyo’s residents.

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Introduction

With a yearly plastic production rate of approximately 2.5 metric tons more than the entire EU, Japan is the second largest producer of recyclable (pura1) plastic in the world. (Figure 1).

(Figure 1)

One main contribution to the consumption of plastic in Japan, is the plastic food packaging industry and its countless consumers living in the world’s most densely populated city; Tokyo. . To cover its 23 ‘special wards’2

, Tokyo has a well developed mass transportation system affording its residents a

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The pura mark, which can be found on most plastic products in Japan, means an item is recyclable.

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“Tokyo is a regional government encompassing 23 special wards, 26 cities, 5 towns and 8 villages. However, reflecting the dense population, urban contiguity, and other realities of the 23-special ward area, a unique administrative system exists between the metropolitan government and the wards, which differs from the typical relationship between prefectures and municipalities” (Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 2016).

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8 paced lifestyle that has an emphasis on mobility and convenience. A konbini3 culture based on a multi

million-yen industry centered around the sale of convenient, pre-packaged goods, has risen around this lifestyle. The plastic packaging of pre-packaged goods not only serves for convenience but is also related to a wrapping culture spanning thousands of years, rooted in understandings of pollution.

To cope with the waste produced by plastic packaging, Tokyo has one of the most extensive, complex, and thoroughly integrated waste management systems in the world. The waste management policy governing this system varies by municipality (see figures 4,5, and 6 at the end) and yet, in practice, is based first on incineration, and second on recycling. Surprisingly, this system was the product of the 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) initiative. Aside from restructuring the Japanese waste disposal system, the 3R initiative was part of a push by the Japanese government to educate the Japanese public on ways to dispose of waste that reduces environmental impact in the construction of “…a vision for a sound material-cycle society, which is designed to reduce natural resource

consumption as well as environmental impact” (Ministry of the Environment 2014, pg 10). This discourse was reinforced on the national, regional, municipal, and local levels through education, the media, and community engagement,

“…the government launched a comprehensive waste reduction strategy in 1993 to promote local community-wide waste reduction and recycling by subsidizing sorted waste collection and group collection by resident groups in municipalities, and it provided subsidies for facilities that repair end-of-life products and put recycled products on display (recycling plazas, see below) to encourage the development of such facilities. In an effort to promote waste reduction in local communities, the government also commended advanced

municipalities engaged in developing social systems for waste generation reduction and recycling as “clean recycling towns.”

3 _{“Konbini are franchised chains of “convenience stores” such as 7-Eleven, Lawson, Family} Mart, Sunkus, and AM-PM, whose stock-in-trade are ready-to-eat meals, box lunches, and highly processed snack foods”(Wilk 2006, Pg 122).

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9 Programs run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government starting even before the 3R initiative, such as the TOKYO SLIM4 program, engaged and educated Tokyo’s communities about ‘proper’ waste

management by working with the Japanese media as well as posting posters at railway stations and enrolling local businesses and community leaders in spreading the gospel of reducing and recycling. “Since the start of the “Tokyo Slim” campaign in 1989, the series of measures taken for over 10 years have resulted in the increase of the annual amount of recycling in Tokyo 23 wards from 300,000 tons to about one million tons” (Murayama, 2011). This has increased to 2.1 million tons by 2006. This

increase in recycling, motivated through community engagement and waste management policy restructuring, is best exemplified by the reclassification of the majority of plastic waste in Japan to

pura5, and marking them as such. “The law that brought us the pura mark is the Container & Packaging Recycling Law, which came into full effect in 2000. Under the law, containers and wrappings “that become unnecessary once their contents have been removed or consumed must be recycled by the businesses that manufacture and use them…Consumers, meanwhile, are responsible for cleaning and sorting their trash according to local rules. These can vary quite a bit, depending on the facilities, budget and commitment of the municipality” (Gordenker, 2010).

In recent years, Tokyo has increasingly moved away from recycling and towards incineration as the basis of waste management. In 2016, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Tokyo

incinerated approximately 80% of its waste, 30% of which is plastic, and recycles approximately 16% of the rest of its waste (see figure 3 below). This is despite the fact that incineration as a method of waste disposal is significantly less sustainable than recycling in environmental life cycle comparisons conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund (see Figure 4).

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The campaign asked residents of Tokyo to take actions on their own to reduce waste. With the increasing interest in the issue of waste through “Tokyo Slim” campaign, TMG introduced a variety of measures and programs to reduce and recycle waste”(Murayama, 2011)

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10 Waste Management Figures for the Netherlands

Total waste supply 60 Mton Recycling 78% Waste-to-energy

(combustible)

10% Landfill(bulky/incombustible) 2.3%

Source: Rijkswaterstaat Leefomgeving,2013; Afval Jaarboek, 2014. Data for 2010 (Figure 2)

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11 (Figure 4)

In total I have lived in Japan for 1.5 years and what has struck me the most about this waste management system was not its apparent effectiveness, but its pervasiveness which has been

discursively rooted in its necessity. Within the context of Tokyo, waste management is essential to the creation of living space in the world’s most densely populated city. Further, it ensures a hygienic living

_{September 17, 1996} _17:25 _{Annual Reviews} _{DENIBACK(D).DUN} _AR16-08

ENVIRONMENTAL LIFE–CYCLE COMPARISONS 209

An nu . R ev . E ne rg y. E nv iro n. 1 99 6. 21 :1 91 -2 37 . D ow nl oa de d fro m w ww .an nu alr ev iew s.o rg A cc es s p ro vi de d by U ni ve rsi tei t v an A m ste rd am o n 05 /1 8/ 16 . F or p er so na l u se o nl y.

CO2 emission of recycling and incineration in tonne CO2 per tonne plastic Recycling Incineration Energy Recovery 0.65 2.60 Recycling 0.20 Transport 0.02 0.01 Sub-total 0.87 2.61

Oppurtunity Emissions Energy 0.78

Oppurtunity Emissions Plastics 0.20

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12 environment and through incineration, produces heat and electricity which can be sold off. On these premises I have come to see waste management in Tokyo as the, “entry of phenomena particular to the life of the human species into the order of knowledge and power into the sphere of political

techniques” (Foucault, 1978), known as bio-politics. Through the use of political technologies aimed

at managing waste produced by the population of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) and the municipal governments of Tokyo engage in bio-political techniques of governance. I use the term political technologies to mean any way in which waste management is dealt with politically within the government. Bio-power, born within the interactions of bio-political technologies of waste management and the life processes of Tokyo’s population can be seen as reciprocally influential in nature but can lead to seemingly omnidirectional sustained flows of influence. Bio-power, as a ‘force’ which actualizes the neoliberal goals of resource production and resource-input reduction, is articulated in a wide array of practices and perceptions for individuals and the population. Underpinning and being (re)produced and transformed within these practices and perceptions, knowledge about waste

management, relating to the government-lead 3R initiative, is discursively constructed and serves as a basis for commonly held (mis)conceptions about waste management technologies, or what Foucault calls ‘truths, and the (non)construction of policies; ingraining the aforementioned neoliberal goals into Tokyo’s waste management institution.

It is on this basis that I will show how the institution of waste management forms bio-power. As you will see through my presentation of ethnographic data and vignettes extracted from 43 interviews and over 170 hours of observation (approximately 55 in public spaces, approximately 100 inside share houses, and approximately 20 inside a private home) about the perceptions and practices of waste and waste management in Tokyo, the consequences of bio-power can be seen in the institutionalization of neoliberal goals within the waste management institution of Tokyo.

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A Small Comparison of Global Significance

Before elaborating on waste management as a form of bio-power I will make a brief

comparison with another country known for sustainable waste management: the Netherlands. Similar to Tokyo, Amsterdam and Rotterdam suffer from a lack of space for landfilling and therefore seek

alternatives for waste management. To cope with this problem, both countries use incineration, but to differing degrees. While the Netherlands incinerates ten percent of its MSW (municipal solid waste) (see Figure 2), Tokyo incinerates 80% (see Figure 3). Almost all municipalities in the Netherlands perform waste separation and none in Tokyo.

Of Rotterdam’s total MSW, only 14% is plastic (Source: CBS Data for 2012) while according to Kaori-san of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, plastic is around 30% of Tokyo’s MSW. Within the Netherlands, there are several programs that work to recycle plastic waste other than PET bottles, such as the Perpetual Plastic Project, “In this project plastic is recycled and made into filament for 3D printers”(Vooijs,2012). Further, private companies and organizations in the Netherlands invest in technologies for the purpose of plastic recycling, “Together with industry organization Nedvang, SUEZ Environment recently invested in a state-of-the-art sorting installation in Rotterdam to process plastic

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14 packaging. Using infrared technology, this sorting system is able to accurately differentiate and

separate various types of plastics such PET, polyethylene, and polypropylene. The sorted plastics are then recycled in the SUEZ’s Quality Circular Polymers factory to create high-value secondary

materials for the plastics industry(Vooijs,2012). I have not come across such programs within my study about Tokyo’s institution of waste management. While Tokyo’s waste management system has been internationally acclaimed as sustainable based on high ‘recycling’ rates, the term ‘recycling’ can also be used to mean the recycling of waste into energy through incineration. Therefore, the incineration based waste management system of Tokyo appears sustainable, but only before investigating how the word ‘recycling’ is used in popular discourse about waste management, and the impact of incineration on C02 emissions and environmental life-cycle comparisons (see Figure 4 and 5).

The choice to incinerate waste and what kind of waste is often based on a negotiation of costs and benefits, “Incineration of plastic waste generates more than three times the energy compared with other materials (see also Morris (2006)). This increases the costs of incinerating waste with less plastic. In other words, decreasing the plastic content of municipal waste lowers the energy output per unit of input and thus increases incineration costs. The benefit of recycling is the avoided CO2 that would otherwise be released during incineration and during the production of plastics (as plastic is based on hydrocarbons). At the same time, there are significant costs involved with separate plastic collection at household level by municipalities (e.g. collections costs) and the production of new (recycled) plastic raw materials”(Gradus, 2016). While the Japanese waste management system may not be as

exceptional as purported regarding its implementation of particularly sustainable technologies, when compared to the Netherlands, it is exceptional in terms of the amount of waste which is incinerated and the amount of waste which is plastic. In this way, an incineration based waste management system is particularly well suited to a Japanese economy with a large stake in plastic production.

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Practices of Waste Management

“

椎茸のお茶なの？

”

(Shitake tea?)

During my study abroad in Kyoto , 2012, nature and environmental issues were not on my mind. Sure, during my bike rides to and from school I always passed verdant areas, saturated with bamboo, especially in the summer. In some places bamboo grew so densely, with such thickness, that you would have the impression of riding in a green tunnel, only to see the light of day far ahead or the blue of sky if you intentionally look above. In retrospect, such lush surroundings rarely provoked thoughts about the environment (and certainly not waste), with one exception that particularly highlighted the contrast of Japan’s nature and waste management.

Texas (his actual name was John Meld, but since he was from Texas…well, you get the point) and I had done some extra homework in our free time and found out that Kyoto, particularly in the damp humidity of summer time, was well known for its wild mushrooms found in the mountainous

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17 undergrowth. He and I both enjoyed cooking and thought it would be a nice experience to have some mushrooms together. When summer classes let out one humid afternoon, Texas and I looked up which mushrooms, found where in Kyoto, were best for our purposes and set out with our backpacks, bottles of water, and hiking shoes to go find them. Anyone who has lived in Kyoto, particularly in the inaka6 parts will tell you that it’s not hard to find a mountain to climb. We walked down the hill surrounded by bamboo, past the pond with old, tiny, wooden boats lined neatly on the shore, and across the narrow dirt path dividing two large rice fields on either side. These rice fields are intersected by a gravel road ending at a small farm house at the base of a green, mountainous wall.

It seemed a bit steep to be a place where mushrooms could be found, but we were determined and decided to make this our entrance into the mountain. Fortunately, what started out as a steep climb up a mountain quickly leveled out into a bumpy, yet relatively flat and verdant jungle. While the periphery of the mountains gives one the impression of a bamboo forest, the interior is a very different scene. Intermingled with bamboo are many different types of trees and shrubs, varying in height and shape, from shades of green to brown. Because Texas and I had always bought our mushrooms pre-picked, we didn’t really know where to look or what exactly to look for. So, we spent the afternoon nonchalantly walking through the forest, chatting, and seeing where our feet took us. I stopped walking when I experienced the strange combination of a ‘crunching’ sound and a slight sinking sensation. I looked down to find bones, plastic, and damp soil. Texas, had walked ahead and was able to see a broader view of my immediate surroundings. He uttered a hushed, “wow...look”. I surveyed the area and realized we had stumbled across what could only be described as a miniature landfill of bones, plastic, and mushrooms.

Plastic packaging from a wide range of konbini foods we recognized and items we didn’t littered the immediate area. Among this plastic could be found hundreds of small, what appeared to be chicken bones. Beneath and between the pieces of plastic were mushrooms of an off white, almost

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18 yellow color. We each took out our smart phones and cross referenced the white-ish mushrooms with what we had found on the website earlier that day. While the picture on the website appeared to be a shade more yellow than the mushrooms beneath our feet, the setting sun convinced us to take what we saw before we couldn’t see any longer. Our eyes clinging to the last vestiges of late afternoon light, we struggled to dig through the plastic and extract the mushrooms unscathed by sharp, bones. On the way back home, we both commented on what a strange mixture of waste to see, particularly in a forest. “Why do you think someone would dump their plastic and food garbage there,” Texas asked aloud. As we sped up our pace, chasing the sun, I considered his question. Why would someone throw away their plastic and food waste in the forest and in such a large quantity? “Why wouldn’t they just properly dispose of it like everyone else,” I questioned back.

“Maybe some other person does not do so good…ah…uh…etto7_…bunbetsu8

? Maybe…I don’t know,” Ayumi said before taking another sip of her coffee. “Ah, you mean separation”, “Yes,

separation”. It was Summer time, 2016 in Tokyo. Ayumi was a 23-year-old snack bar9

hostess living in Ikebukuro10. We had met a few hours earlier at a meet-up11 event for language exchange. Japanese people are often eager to practice their English and I found during my field study that the website “meetup.com” offered me plenty of opportunities to speak with Japanese people. Ayumi had studied in Australia for half a year, two years before, and was in my group for the meet-up to practice her English. After the meet-up, Ayumi agreed to allow me to interview her at Pronto Café, a five-minute walk from the bar where the meet-up was. “Maybe it depends on who is around. I live alone. When I am alone I

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Used in Japanese to convey that the speaker is thinking. 8

Separation.

9 _{“Above-board snacks all have in common that they provide light fare. Some open during the} day, serving coffee, before switching to alcohol as evening draws on. Others don’t open until the sun goes down” (Prideaux, 2004).

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Ikebukuro is one of the most densely populated areas in the Toshima ward, one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo.

11 _{A ‘Meetup group’ is a local community of people that form groups on-line based on similar} interests and then have ‘meet-ups’ in real life.

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19 never separate garbage except bottle”. “But, will they take your garbage if it isn’t separated? Also, why does it matter if you are alone?” At this question she appeared confused before answering, “What do you mean? How will they know if you don’t separate…ah…etto…moeru gomi12? It is all mix together in a bag…What was your other question?” This was a revelation for me. The government official I had interviewed in August told me about their culture of “self-reliance” and that the municipality does not have a problem with people not separating their waste because the garbage worker would simply not take unseparated garbage. But, Ayumi was right, even in my share house there was no way to know if the burnable garbage was properly separated unless something large and obvious like a plastic bottle was sticking out of the bag. “Oh right, why does it matter if you are alone?” “Ah so, well…it is hard to explain. Nanka…when I am with family or someone I know, I feel some kind of pressure to follow the rules. I know if I don’t uh…separate...my garbage my family will say something and my mother will become angry. Or…etto…obaachan? She will be very angry.” “Your mother and your grandma? Why would they be angry?” “Don’t you know? In a Japanese family the mother always separates garbage. My mother taught me when I was a child how to separate garbage and she always used to separate garbage with me when I was a child. Also, not my grandma. In small neighborhoods sometimes there is old woman who lives there. She always checks to see if other people living in the neighborhood do separation. If she sees that someone leaves garbage outside she will wait until they return to their house and then check the garbage to see if it is…etto…chanto(properly)...separate. If I see her when I leave garbage outside, I will make sure I did good separation. If I just leave garbage..そのままなんか分別 していなかたならおばあちゃんが起こってになるよ ” (Umm…just like that…like, not separated, then grandma will become angry). “But…who cares? She’s not your real grandmother. Why does it matter?” At this question, Ayumi seemed to almost become perturbed and even more confused,“Eee???

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20 It is the rules. Of course that grandmother can be angry at me. It is my fault if I don’t separate the garbage properly.”

Background

In 2004, Japan proposed the 3R Initiative at the G8 summit. This was a government-lead initiative that was the basis for a, “law [that] provides a clear vision for a sound material-cycle society…it also presents basic principles for the establishment of a sound material-cycle society, including legally determining the order of priority for resource recycling and waste management (1. generation reduction; 2. reuse; 3. recycling; 4. thermal recovery; and 5. proper disposal)” (Ministry of the Environment, 2014)”. In the promotion and practice of constructing a sound material cycle society, the Japanese government restructured the waste management system. Within this process, government-lead discourses about the importance of waste separation and recycling were seen and reinforced within community movements, school programs, and educational curricula throughout Tokyo; engaging all members of communities, from grandmothers to children. The influences of this initiative can be seen in the varying forms of waste management practices below.

Bio-power in Practice(s)

Bio-power is diffuse and often reciprocally influential in nature. Waste management practices as the effects of bio-power often lead to the production of energetic resources; even when they subvert policy,

“Power relations are both intentional and non-subjective… they are imbued, through and through, with calculation… but this does not mean [they] result from the choice or decision of an individual subject”. (Foucault, 1998, pp.94-5)

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21 I invite you to use this conceptualization of bio-power to understand how it is articulated within the waste management practices of people in ways that (re)produce norms, alter consumption habits, and subvert policies while achieving bio-politically orchestrated, neoliberal goals of resource production.

Practices of Subversion

As the stark contrast between the extensive policies given to me by Morita-mama and the pile of plastic found in the forest might have indicated; waste disposal practices in Japan are

enacted in a variety of ways. For people such as Ayumi, subversion in waste management is enacted by throwing all waste into one section such as burnable. According to Ayumi, “Maybe I am not a good example? I almost never separate my garbage at home. I throw everything I can into burnable as long as I don’t get in trouble”. To see if and how other people subverted waste management policies and how this was perceived, I conducted 55-65 hours of observations outside of konbinis, inside cafes, in train stations, and in two festivals in addition to 43 interviews. The subversion of waste management policies in favor of the burnable section was a common site in festivals, train stations, and konbinis. The majority of cafes had separations on top of their waste bins which were within an enclosure. When I opened the doors to the enclosure, I found that several cafes did not have a separation on the inside despite the outside clearly requiring customers to separate their waste, in other words, all of the waste went into the same receptacle.

Within each of the other sites, I noted that the burnable section was often filled with old food and plastic wrap. While municipal policies may or may not allow for the incineration of plastics, most train stations have a section called ‘その他’(that other) next to only a paper and bottle section. These sites explicitly force people to dispose of plastic waste along with other waste in a burnable section (‘that other’ goes to incineration). Other sites such as festivals and konbinis maintained several

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22 separations including a burnable, with the burnable section consistently being the fullest. To confirm my observations at konbinis, I was fortunate enough to be able to interview two konbini owners

(Laweson and Sunkus in Kita-ku) as well as a konbini clerk (7-11 in Shinjuku ni-chome). Within these interviews they unanimously confirmed that plastic food packaging was the most common form of waste thrown in the burnable section (despite the fact that these municipalities have varying waste separation policies for plastic waste).

Within my interviews, the majority (30 out of 43) admitted to disposing of their plastic waste in the burnable sections of konbini receptacles and train stations while adhering to the policy (as they knew it) when in a restaurant or a café. When asked how often they adhered to the separation policies the majority of people (32 out of 43) said around 50% or less of the time. 17 of my interviewees said 30% or less of the time. The people who lived at home with their parents said they adhered to the policies most stringently at home (12 of those that lived with parents, the total of which is 13) while the ones, such as Ayumi, who lived alone said they did not feel the need to separate stringently or at all at home (16 of those that lived alone, the total of which is 18). They discursively rationalized this with reasons such as its inconvenient to separate all of the waste because there is so much packaging or ‘I don’t have the time’. Within my interviews and observations in public spaces, people often

(mis)practiced waste separation with the exception of in a restaurant and a café but I only saw someone litter once ( a cigarette) . In contrast, people perceived themselves as adhering to waste management policy when living with their family.

People admitted to (mis)practice through the subversion of plastic waste disposal policy by throwing plastic waste in the burnable section. They also perceived other people as (mis)practicing to the same extent as themselves or more; in other words, the majority of people indicated that they perceived themselves and other people as subverting waste separation policy, particularly for plastic waste, in favor of the burnable section. Locations such as train stations and cafes reinforce this same (mis)practice with varying explicitness. While people perceived themselves as subverting waste

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23 separation policies, this was reinforced in varying ways within public and private spaces. Therefore, the effects of bio-power are seen within (mis)practice as a practice which is on one level perceived and enacted as a subversion of waste management policy, while on another level contributing to the bio-politically structured, neoliberal goals of energetic production via the incineration of plastic. These waste disposal practices, while subversive in particular public spaces and private homes, can be quite different within other living situations that include other actors.

Gendered Practice(s)

Over the course of 9 visits, I conducted 18-20 hours of observation, mainly in the kitchen in the family home of an old friend, Masahiro. Masahiro’s family includes: Masahiro (26), Kazuma (older brother- 28), Tomoka (little sister-6), Michiko (mother-54), and Kazuaki (father- 56). In line with what some of my interviewees said, I observed comparatively strict adherence to waste separation policies when compared to how people separated waste in konbinis and train stations.

While Masahiro and his older brother separated their waste before disposing of it, their mother, Michiko-san, was busy teaching their little sister how to properly separate her own waste. I saw

Michiko-san reinforce proper separation habits for her child almost every visit that I paid to Masahiro. Furthermore, every Thursday and Monday Michiko-san would wake up at 5, don green rubber gloves, and painstakingly dig through the burnable and non-burnable waste before taking it out to the street. Later, Masahiro confirmed for me that his mother had done this for as long as he could remember and that it was 『当然だろう？』(Naturally?). The Japanese mother’s role in family waste disposal is a common phenomenon which I was able to confirm in my interviews. When asked who taught them waste disposal outside of school, the overwhelming majority (42) of my 43 interviewees responded with, “my mother” (with the exception of one who did not grow up with his mother in his household).

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24 While the mother ensures proper separation inside the home, the ‘grandmother’ or obaachan of the neighborhood ensures proper separation of the whole community. Similar to Ayumi, other interviewees mentioned that the obaachan within the community would reprimand neighbors who had not separated their waste properly or had left the wrong garbage out on the wrong day. This is such a common occurrence that it is even a trope within Japanese animation.

While particular practices of waste separation fall on the mothers and different practices of waste management are taken up by older women, daughters learn to take on similar roles in the shared living spaces I observed. To accommodate the schedules of the tenants in three share-houses across Tokyo (Kita, Akabane, and Toshima), I conducted approximately 100 hours of observations and interviews with 10 Japanese people (ages 18-27). The overwhelming majority were in school or work during most days and all came home between the hours of 5-9. While the waste management practices varied by house in relation to chore charts and municipal policies, I observed that girls within the share houses that had a chore chart (varying with schedule), on average took out waste more often than boys in the instances where someone had not completed waste disposal on their designated day. Further, within the Kita house that did not have a chore chart, girls also took out waste, only slightly more often, than boys when it was full. In these ways, the same gendered waste management practices which

proliferate among communities for mothers and grandmothers, are also seen for females in shared living spaces.

The gendered understandings of waste management as presented above echo broader gender norms regarding house maintenance found within Japan. “During the expansion of the Japanese empire, particular forms of feminiety were leveraged on the literal “home front” with the saying “good wife, wise mother” (ryosai kembo), which pushed women to imagine how their domestic actions might contribute to the national project” (Alexy, 2014). Even after WWII, a time in which the Japanese constitution incorporated legislation for the expressed purpose of ‘equalizing the sexes’, “Women were still expected to protect the household. Men were expected to be the breadwinners (Cooper, 2013; Sato,

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25 1987; Saito, 2007). This role persists within the Japanese familial structure even now. “In 2007,

Japanese men average only 30 minutes of housework, child care, and elder care each day (North, 2009). This is regardless of how much the wife works. Wives are expected to shoulder these tasks” (Kincaid, 2014).

For Japanese women, these cleaning responsibilities are transcendent of household obligations; extending to spatial and membership communities as well,

“In contemporary Japan, spatial and membership communities have dimensions that are partly traditional, partly modern…interconnections between spatial and membership communities persist, as women involved in groups are likely to have an informal

information network related to (spatial) community needs… Whereas men make greater regular use of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and clubs near their places of work or on the way home, women congregate in similar facilities in the neighborhood…and

community centers; they also hold long conversations on neighborhood streets. Because of its significance, public-space maintenance is the responsibility of local residents. One example is garbage cleanup” (Imamura, 1987).

Similar to the normalization of household chores as a feminized practice within the national project of Japanese expansion; waste management, as the centerpiece of the Japanese government’s 3R initiative and already considered to be a household chore, was emphasized as a task for Japanese

women within their communities. Once again, the government enlisted women in a national project, instead of expansion, this time it was the reduction of environmental impact through reformations in the waste management system by altering practices on the individual level. One way in which the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and its municipalities accomplished this was through municipal and community level programs such as TOKYO Slim. These programs, run during the day time hours of week days and some weekends, had greatest access to non-working members of households within communities; traditionally housewives and older women. As explained in the previous paragraphs,

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26 many women within Tokyo already identified as custodians of their homes and communities; thereby positioning Japanese mothers and grandmothers at the forefront of the 3R initiative through community level engagements. This gendered waste management practice as related to spatial and membership communities is articulated within the practices of Masahiro’s mother teaching her daughter, the obaachan within the Tokyo communities, and the girls living in share houses that I observed.

Practices of Consumption

While people subvert waste separation policies in ways which increase the incineration of plastic, female members of Tokyo communities are involved in the (re)production of gender norms in the form of waste management practices, which depending upon the municipality could also increase plastic incineration. Yet, other practices, seemingly unrelated to waste management, are also

transformed in relation to the the institution of waste management. Consumption habits inside the home and at konbinis are altered. The majority of people I interviewed (40) told me that they went to a

konbini at least twice a week, and a third of all my interviewees went 4-6 times a week. The majority of interviewees told me that they usually bought food which had plastic wrap or a drink in a plastic bottle. In many instances, particularly in the afternoon and evening when the waste receptacles are already full, my interviewees told me that they would change what they bought to avoid producing anymore plastic waste if there was no receptacle to deposit it in or may choose a snack that, while producing waste, allows for the waste to be stored in their backpack without making it dirty.

Similar to outside of the home, consumption practices within the home are altered as well. Many of my interviewees felt that the most “troublesome”(めんどくさい) part of the waste

management system was the schedule of days that you can leave what type of waste outside. Many of the people that I interviewed even admitted to changing their consumption habits to avoid the disposal

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27 of odorous goods before the designated day they could be taken to the street. Therefore, bio-power is articulated as consumption practices are altered in konbinis and in homes in relation to the institution of waste management, such as policies and receptacle locations . Please see the following link for the waste disposal policies and take-out schedule of Shinjuku (it is too big to include in this

thesis) ://www.city.shinjuku.lg.jp/foreign/english/pdf/other/gomi2012_e.pdf .

The

Performance of Practice

“Maybe it depends on who is around. I live alone. When I am alone I never separate garbage except bottle”. “But, will they take your garbage if it isn’t separated? Also, why does it matter if you are alone?” At this question she appeared confused before answering, “What do you mean? How will

they know if you don’t separate…ah…etto…moeru gomi?”

As indicated in the preceding sections, the residents of Tokyo practice different methods of waste management in different environments. Exemplary of this is how women of varying ages in households and communities stringently adhere to waste separation policies, while the majority of my interviewees that lived alone, such as Ayumi, said they consolidated most of their household waste into the burnable section regardless of the municipal policy. Similarly, when in public spaces Tokyo

residents used the burnable section most often regardless of the municipal policies but when

interviewed said they would separate thoroughly when in front of others in their family home. Practice as conducted based on location and the presence of others indicates that the combination of who and

where influences the way waste is managed. Erving Goffman said about people when in the presence

of others that,

“

Each individual can see that he is being experienced in some way, and he will guide at least some of his conduct according to the perceived identity and initial response of his audience”

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28 (Goffman,1963). Therefore, all forms of public behavior can be viewed as a form of interaction

between the actors present.. On this basis, it is useful to analyze these varying forms of waste management as types of interactions being performed as one would in theater; the script of which is based on the expectations of others present given the ‘setting’, or time, physical place, and people present.

When viewed as an interaction performed in the copresence13 of others , waste management in public spaces such as train stations, konbinis, and festivals is what Goffman refers to as unfocused

interaction, “that is, the kind of communication that occurs when one gleans information about another

person present by glancing at him, if only momentarily, as he passes into and then out of one's view”(Goffman, 1963). During unfocused interactions, embodied communications, communications which cannot be necessarily verbal but only exist if the sender is physically present, are disseminated through waste disposal and separation practices. According to Goffman, “…even if those in his

presence are not quite conscious of the communication they are receiving, they will none the less sense something sharply amiss should the uncustomary be conveyed” (Goffman,1963). Interactions, such as waste management in public spaces, are routinely performed by most if not all residents of Tokyo and therefore have a highly institutionalized mode of conduct. As an institution, waste management even in its most undeveloped form is the management of waste into some sort of receptacle, as opposed to unfettered littering. In other words, the most basic element of institutionalized waste management practices is the disposal of waste into a receptacle. Therefore, the performance of (mis)practice in favor of the burnable section within the unfocused interaction of public waste management avoids the most obvious subversion of institutionalized waste management conduct, littering, and communicates the most basic waste management norm has been adhered to; disposal into a receptacle. The lengths to

13

“The full conditions of copresence, however, are found in less variable circumstances: persons must sense that they are close enough to be perceived in whatever they are doing, including their experiencing of others, and close enough to be perceived in this sensing of being perceived” (Goffnan,1963).

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29 which Tokyo residents work to maintain the appearance of adhering to this norm is performed varying degrees, from disposing of waste into the burnable receptacle to the alteration of consumption habits at konbinis.

“Attempts are made to present an "idealized" version of the front, more consistent with the norms, mores, and laws of society than the behavior of the actor when not before an audience”

(Goffman, 1959). In an ongoing attempt to achieve an ‘idealized front’ when in the presence of others, Tokyo residents conduct seemingly normative waste management performances when in public spaces. Yet, waste management performances conducted to appear normative because others can see them is what Goffman calls body symbolisms, “an idiom of individual appearances and gestures that tends to call forth in the actor what it calls forth in the others, the others drawn from those, and only those, who are immediately present” (Goffman, 1963). In the context of waste management, this refers to the act of disposing of waste in front of others because it is institutionalized, or, expected of others. As body symbolisms are actions performed to mimic institutionalized behaviors, they are imbued with and attached to various other socially constructed understandings which can be recognized and understood by others and therefore have the capacity to, “…convey information about the actor’s social attributes and about his conception of himself, of the others present, and of the setting”(Goffman, 1963). The potency of waste management as a performance reflective of a conceived self is seen in the role older women, mothers, and young Japanese women play within spatial and membership communities in Tokyo.

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30 The practices of people are transformed in varying ways. People ‘perform’ proper separation when in front of others and (mis)practice through the subversion of separation policy in public waste receptacles and while living alone. This subversion is perceived and practiced by throwing the bulk of the plastic waste in the burnable section; constructing practices that on one level subvert policy, while on another level reinforce bio-politically structured neoliberal goals of energetic production via the incineration of plastic. Conversely, women conduct gendered waste management practices,

reinforcing Japanese gender norms within communities in ways that support the waste management policies and consumption habits are altered on the same basis. In these ways, bio-power within the the institution of waste management (re)produces gendered practices and norms and shapes acts of

subversion and consumption in favor of resource production via the incineration of plastic waste.

After Story

After Texas and I brought the mushrooms home we looked up how to make a mushroom tea. Texas began boiling the tea and I started chopping the mushrooms. Lumie (our Japanese roommate) walked by and asked,

「きのこから何作っているの」(what are you making from mushrooms)? Texas replied, “えっと。。。お茶だよ”(uh...tea).

「椎茸からお茶ができる知らなかった」(I didn’t know you could make tea from shitake mushrooms).

Texas and I looked at each other, our exasperated expressions reflecting in each others’ eyes, and ate mushrooms for the following dinner and breakfast.

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31

Articulations of Waste Management

From the Horse’s Mouth

Looking back, I was really lucky. Seriously, it was a total shot in the dark. I didn’t actually think I would get an interview with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Ministry of the

Environment. Over the course of three months, I sent emails back and forth; painstakingly adhering to Japanese etiquette. I was careful to not be too direct while still being direct enough to seem like my research was useful to the government. I allowed my schedule to appear open enough while not being so open as to be perceived as desperate. I even made sure to not be seen as too knowledgeable less I put the other party in a position in which they might lose face. Through the many emails, I paid attention to my use of different forms of politeness when writing in Japanese and included the proper introductions and closings. In short, yeah, I danced the linguistic dance and lied my pants off; giving the impression that I knew nothing about waste management in Tokyo except that it was a model for the world; one that I wanted to study.

Miyama Kaori was her name, but I only referred to her as “Kaori-san”. She was the one who agreed to an interview. The appointment was set for 13:40 on a Tuesday and the night before I set the rout on my phone via google maps (I did not have mobile internet while in Tokyo so I often inputted directions in my GPS before leaving) and went to sleep early. I even timed my route such that I was 15 minutes early to be the appropriate 10 minutes early. Timing is very important in Japan. If you come too early you might interrupt prior obligations and be perceived as burdensome but if you are just “on time” it might be perceived as a lack of commitment. I wore the only semi-formal clothing I owned: a pair of black slacks from Zara and a pin stripe, black and white, button down shirt.

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32 I arrived within the 15-minute buffer of the appropriate 10 minutes ahead of time. I went to the receptionist and told her my business. Through much confusion, she explained to me that I should be in the building across the street as there were two buildings that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government used. She was kind enough to give me a map from a stack that sat on her desk, diagraming both buildings in a 3D sketch and the streets of the surrounding area. Maps are commonly used in Japan. In 2012 before my Japanese was conversational, when asking for directions in the street, to avoid the awkward and painful experience of trying to understand my Jinglish, I was given a hand-drawn map on more than one occasion. Despite having to use many maps, may they be in the subway or improvised by a stranger, I rarely understood them. The map given to me by the receptionist, with its English and its descriptive 3D drawings so even foreigners could not get lost, was no different.

I quickly walked out of the building and waited at the cross-walk, my nerves tightening more every second of my 15-minute buffer that passed. I walked across the street and found myself

completely lost, map in hand. I frantically sped up my pace, walking around the building in search of the entrance. At last, I found a security guard who easily directed me through the parking lot and into the building. After presenting my business to the receptionist in the correct building and receiving an ID badge, I was sent up the elevator and to the 4th floor. I found my way down the long hall to the room with, “東京都環境局-きょく”(Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Bureau of the Environment) in golden, metal letters on the outside wall.

I entered a large room with approximately 40-50 Japanese people in black and white business attire, walking around or sitting at desks arranged in blocks of 6-9, each with a computer and papers on top. These desk blocks were divided by plastic, material covered walls short enough to be seen over but tall enough to create a path through the maze of desks. Government workers ran to and fro, all speaking in hushed tones that together created a chorus of Japanese. Next to the door was a phone with

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33 the extension, and a feminine, almost girlish, high-pitched voice answered quickly with something I couldn’t quite pick up. I introduced myself but the voice on the other end must have recognized my thick, American accent because before I could state my business she replied with, “ あダニエル〜さん、すぐに行きます、少々お待ちください”(Ah, Daniel. I will come right away. Please wait a moment).

A woman about half my size navigated her way quickly around the blocks of desks and

approached me. After exchanging formal greetings, I followed her to the back of the room where a long table with a television sitting next to it was. In Japanese, she requested that I wait there for just a

moment while she found her colleague. Over the course of my field study, during three interviews with government and NGO organizations, I never once gave an interview with less than two people present.

Kaori-san and a colleague whose name escapes me returned with a stack of pamphlets, each with brightly colored illustrations of cartoon characters or nature intermingled with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government insignia on the fronts. I quickly stood up as a sign of respect and we all sat down together. I asked if it was ok for me to record the interview and both agreed, so we began. I started with simple questions, such as their names, positions in the Ministry of the Environment and then moved into questions about the waste management system. Every question I asked, Kaori-san started with, “あ、そうですね。.。” (ah, yes well…) while her colleague quickly flipped through the pamphlets to find a correlating answer. Even when Kaori-san was able to answer my question, she confirmed with her colleague before giving me a final nod and an affirming, “そういうことです”（It is as said).

I quickly realized that my interview was not so much with the person named Miayama Kaori or her colleague as it was with the words of the government conveniently written in pamphlet form, reinforcing popular discourses; which was just fine by me. Even when I asked the question, “in your

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34 do you feel like it impacts the environment,” Kaori-san had to wait for her opinion to be read to her from the pamphlet, “Ah, yes. Of course, we produce a lot of electricity with the incineration. This is good for the environment because we use our waste. Hmmm…of course, the best would be to reduce waste to zero but we are not quite there yet” (もちろん、ゴミがゼロになるのほうがいいですが。。。). I avoided being too confrontational but I I wanted to know how the government of Tokyo discursively navigated the problem of an incineration based waste management system that burnt so much plastic, but was based on an initiative to reduce environmental impact when incineration is much less sustainable than recycling (see Figure 1) .When asked if there were any negative impacts to

burning plastic Kaori-san began by telling me how Tokyo was filling the last landfill they will ever have and that there is simply no space for waste in Tokyo. She then said, “Well, we use a very high technology so it is not a problem”. I was dumbfounded. Before going to Japan I had done extensive research on the waste management system, specifically related to the incineration technology they employed and had concluded that while the technology they used, fluid-bed combustion, lead to the

reduction of most dioxide emissions, it did not eliminate dioxides from burning plastic nor did it reduce

all dioxides emitted when burning plastics. I knew that either the research I had conducted over the

entirety of the first semester at the UvA was all wrong, or Kaori-san was sorely mistaken. I wanted to confirm her words beyond a hint of a doubt so in Japanese I rephrased the question to, “In other words, any kind of plastic can be burnt and it doesn’t hurt the environment” and Kaori-san responded with, “はい、そうと思います” (Yes, I believe so).

I left the interview with a “TMG” pin and a contact name for an employee in the CAT 23 (Clean Authority Tokyo) department. This is the governmental entity that controls waste management for the 23 largest municipalities in Tokyo. CAT 23, alongside private companies, governs all processes regarding waste from pick-up to the final disposal. CAT 23 is also in charge of all of the processes regarding incineration. If anyone knew about the details of waste management in Tokyo, it was the

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35 people who worked in CAT 23. Over the course of the next week, I emailed back and forth with

Aoyama-san of CAT 23. While there was some minor confusion in the start about who I was (Kaori-san had forgotten to give my name and introduction to Aoyama-(Kaori-san before I emailed him. As I

mentioned before, adhering to Japanese etiquette when contacting someone, governmental employee or otherwise, is very important), Aoyama-san eventually understood my purpose and agreed to an

interview.

Much like the Bureau of the Environment, the office for CAT 23 was located in a high rise but this time in Shinjuku, one of the most densely populated municipalities in Tokyo. The office looked very similar, with many desks divided by short walls and government employees busily working at their computers, speaking with each other, or moving about the room. This time, I was greeted at the door of the office by a thin woman in her late 30s or early 40s. She wore a dark grey skirt, white button down shirt, and a black and white flower-pattern sweater; the flashy style one would expect from a civil servant of the Japanese government. She introduced herself as Shiratori Sobutoshi and lead me to another table in the back and asked me to wait as she went to get Aoyama-san. Aoyama-san arrived with a stack of CAT-23 pamphlets in one hand and three, one-sided papers that had the typed interview questions I had sent him the night before, corrections typed in red beneath each line.

If the corrections to my poorly written interview questions (my written Japanese is passable at best) weren’t an indication of Aoyama-san’s thorough preparation, his and Sobutoshi-san’s quick, synchronized, and unfaltering manner in answering my questions certainly was. I asked the two CAT 23 employees similar questions as I did the TMG, but with more depth in hopes of getting a clearer understanding of the waste management system and popular discourses about waste management. Aoyama-san was kind enough to explain many aspects of the waste management system, using the diagrams in the pamphlets as his aid. The three, one-sided sheets in hand, he was sure to cite the high recycling rate of waste in Tokyo and energy produced by incinerators as well as several other examples of innovative ways in which material has been re-used, pointing to different pictures within each

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36 pamphlet all the while. He even mentioned that the best situation would be for ‘waste to be reduced to zero’, just as Kaori-san had mentioned. When asked about how CAT 23 ensures that plastic bottles are actually recycled, Aoyama-san explained to me what he referred to as the “culture of self-reliance”; one in which the citizens of Tokyo are expected to practice proper separation. In fact, CAT23 was so

assured of their “culture of self-reliance” that, according to Aoyama-san, the government did not separate any waste after pick-up unless it was a very obvious mistake, such as a “refrigerator”. What’s more, not only was Aoyama-san sure that there was no need to separate waste after collection, but his colleague informed me that the government did not, “believe there was a need” to track illegal

dumping, something which my research had indicated was a problem in Tokyo. Sobutoshi-san also explained to me that not only did Tokyo have a high recycling rate, but that the incineration based waste management system produced enough energy to run itself and create a surplus, proudly showing me with the pamphlets that approximately 80% of all municipal waste produced in Tokyo was

incinerated.

In slightly different words, Aoyama-san and his colleague repeated much of what Kaori-san of the TMG had told me; there was no room in Tokyo for a landfill so incineration, with the ability to produce energy and reduce the input of energy, was the most sustainable method for the disposal of municipal waste. With his pamphlets as visual aids, and what seemed to be almost rehearsed responses, Aoyama-san and his colleague used carefully chosen words, ambiguous enough to not directly

challenge current environmental discourse while still painting the waste management system of Tokyo as reducing environmental impact to my questions about its environmental efficacy; just as they were written on his three, one-sided papers.

While the many paper pamphlets with detailed diagrams and the three, one-sided papers helped describe the many ways in which the waste management system of Tokyo reduced environmental impact, I was not entirely convinced. Having spoken to four different governmental employees, I thought it was time to search for different perspectives on waste management. I contacted IGES, an

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37 environmental NGO. By definition an NGO should not be affiliated with the government and therefore might have different ideas about waste management, or so I thought. Fortunately, an environmental conference was being held in the Yokohama Convention Center, only an hour train ride from my share house the following week. I contacted IGES and they were more than happy to be interviewed between the lectures being held at the convention.

I decided to arrive early enough to listen to a lecture on Japan’s involvement in global climate change before my meeting. This lecture was on sustainability and presented new innovations about how Tokyo could become more ‘green’. I walked out of the lecture with a positive feeling, expecting the fresh perspectives on Tokyo’s infrastructure to continue into my interview with IGES. Hotta-san, Yoshinori-san, and Yoshiaki-san were all active environmental researchers in the field of sustainable consumption. I met the three IGES members at the front desk and we walked through the broad, window lined, hallway which connected the two main buildings of the convention center. On either side of this hallway were groupings of unoccupied chairs and tables, so we pulled four together and began our interview. With the positive words from the lecture about a potentially green Tokyo lingering in my mind, the knowledge that all three of these men were environmental researchers, and the sun shining through the wall sized windows, it seemed to me the perfect setting to shed light on the waste management system of Tokyo in ways I had not yet experienced. I asked, “Please, be as direct as possible in your answers. As experts in the field of sustainable consumption, what would you say are the negative aspects of the incineration based waste management system in Tokyo,”. I was sure that as these people were ostensibly unaffiliated with the government and were active researchers in the field of sustainable consumption, they would give me a less ambiguous and less seemingly biased answer than what I had received in my two government interviews.

All three men stared at me, in silence, with stern looks. As I thought they must be thinking of their answer, I waited for what felt like an eternity before I rephrased my question in Japanese , “えっ

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38 と。。。なんか、いっぱいプラスチックとか燃やしたら環境にちょっと問題がありませんか？”(Ummm…like, if you burn a lot of plastic is there not a problem for the environment?). At this, a couple of the men chuckled and Hotta-san said, “I think it is widely accepted that incineration is the only option for Tokyo and Japan. We do not have enough space to live in Tokyo. If we do not use incineration to dispose of our waste, there is no other option”. Hotta-san had removed the ambiguity from his answer, but did not even bother to respond to the question about the environmental problems of burning plastic. It seemed the hopes I had for a perception of waste management different than that of the government’s were in vain, but I still wanted to finish the interview.

Yoshinori-san quickly followed Hotta-san’s stern words with, “There are many benefits of our incineration system such as the fact that it produces energy. It is a very sustainable method of waste management”. I decided to try a different tactic and I asked the question, “What do you think about the TMG priority list of reduce,re-use, recycle, then incineration? Why do you think that incineration has become the dominate method of waste disposal?” “You mean recycling and then incineration? It is very hard to measure how much people reduce or re-use their waste but we can measure recycling”. While I understood why recycling was easier to measure than the reduction of waste, I did not

understand why Hotta-san indicated that recycling was used more than incineration when Aoyama-san and Kaori-san had clearly stated that Tokyo incinerates 80% of its waste. I confirmed this in follow-up emails as well as the fact that only approximately 10% of waste is recycled in Tokyo. After the

interview I chatted with the three IGES members and mentioned that I had also interviewed employees at the TMG and CAT 23. They asked who I had spoken to and when I told them, all three IGES

members knew all four of the government officials I had interviewed by name.

Similar to the government officials and IGES members that I interviewed, the Japanese people discursively positioned the waste management system in Tokyo as “good” or “not bad”. In most cases

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39 (42) my respondents did not express any significant problems with the incineration based system. The discursive expression of incineration as necessary seems to be based in the understanding that there is no space for waste in Tokyo, as mentioned by both Kaori-san and the IGES members. This idea was reinforced in such statements as “the biggest challenge facing Tokyo is the amount of waste produced because there is no space for residents to live” in my interviews with people. Throughout all of my interviews, it was clear that the idea of Tokyo not having enough space to live in is a common perception when it comes to how people think about waste and waste management.

What’s also interesting is that similar to what the government representatives and IGES members said, people perceived recycling to be a very important method of waste management. When asked what method of waste management is “nicest towards the natural environment” (環境に優しい) , people almost unanimously (all but 2) said, “recycling”. When asked where they learned about waste management and the environment, all of the participants in my interviews informed me that they studied waste management in their seikatsu14 class but only in terms of the social significance of

separation. When it came to how waste management relates to the environment, almost all (96%) of my participants said they only learned that there was no space for waste and that recycling is a very environmentally friendly method（環境に優しい- nice to the natural environment） of disposal. While discursive rationalization for waste management methods may vary, there seem to be several constants that relate to broader, yet less explicit discourses. In the following, I will unpack the main analytical components needed for understanding governmental, NGO, and popular discourses about waste management in Tokyo.

14

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40

Bio-power in Discourse

In the previous chapter, I examine how bio-political and scientific technologies of waste management are involved in the production of energy. Effects of bio-power can be seen in the reinforcement of this resource production through particular practices of subversion while

simultaneously being articulated in practices which adhere to policy. Bio-power can also be seen discursively in the construction of knowledge upon which ‘regimes of truth’, or (mis)conceptions, are (re)produced and transformed by the government, NGO activists, and in popular discourse. Further,

“These ‘general politics’ and ‘regimes of truth’ are the result of scientific discourse and institutions, and are reinforced (and redefined) constantly through the education system, the media, and the flux of political and economic ideologies. In this sense, the ‘battle for truth’ is not for some absolute truth that can be discovered and accepted, but is a battle about ‘the rules according to which the true and false are separated and specific effects of power are attached to the true’… a battle about ‘the status of truth and the economic and political role it plays” (Foucault, in Rabinow 1991).

Having examined how bio-power is expressed through practice to neoliberal ends in the form of resource production, we will now investigate how knowledge is produced through discourses, upon which ‘truths’, or (mis)conceptions about waste management that emphasize aspects of neoliberal ideology can be seen. I will examine discourses as seen within my interviews with governmental officials, NGO activists, and other people. I will show how the discursive production of knowledge about waste management relating to particular aspects of the 3R imitative is instrumental in forming commonly held (mis)conceptions, or ‘truths’ about waste management, and create the basis of policy

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41 construction which reinforces a neoliberal institution of waste management and adds to the production of discourses.

Usage of Discourses Within the Government

“In your opinion, what are the good and bad points of the waste management system in Tokyo and in what ways do you feel like it impacts the environment,” Kaori-san had to wait for her opinion to be read to her from the pamphlet, “Ah, yes. Of course, we produce a lot of electricity with the

incineration. This is good for the environment because we use our waste. Hmmm…of course, the best would be to reduce waste to zero but we are not quite there yet”.

In response to questions about the environmental efficacy of Tokyo’s WMS, governmental interlocutors and NGO members discursively emphasized reduction and production of energetic resources. When asked what are the ‘good and bad points’ as well as the ‘environmental impact’ of waste management in Tokyo, Kaori-san and Aoyama-san both answered that it would be best for waste to ‘become zero’ but that incineration produces energy for itself and excess to be sold off by municipal governments. Kaori-san further supported the waste management system by saying that they produce ‘a lot of electricity with incineration’; similar to Aoyama-san and Hotta-san. These answers

emphasized specific aspects of the system’s technologies to position the waste management system as reducing environmental impact because it produces resources; thereby reducing the consumption as well. This particular conception of environmental impact, based on the production of resources and the reduction of their consumption, was also employed when IGES members discursively supported incineration technology based on its ability to produce energy. This construction of environmental impact was one basis of the pamphlets and the governmental interlocutors’/IGES members’ discursive

Ways of waste : practices and perceptions of waste and waste management in Tokyo