After spending two weeks here in Japan, I noticed that such a big city like Tokyo has no rubbish bin at all on the street. When I visited the Asasuka Temple area, a tourist spot I thought i might found some bins, but I was wrong. According to Prof. Yoshifumi Fujii of Bunkyo University, this is part of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government strategy to curb the solid waste problem. It is done according to the polluters pay principle in which the waste generator has to take responsibility of disposing the rubbish. Since no bin is provided on the street, the generator has no choice, but brought back to their house or work place. This school of thought believes that by creating troublesome to the waste generators, they will be very careful on using resources and generating the waste. They will try their very best to optimise the resources. However, another school of thought believes that in order to raise awareness and inculcate good habit on solid waste disposal, placing of bins at strategic point is very critical. They say instead of asking people to climb the mountain, bringing the mountain to the target group will be more effective. For the former to be successful, awareness and commitment of the people must be very high. Everybody is willing to do a little bit extra. For Malaysian, I do not think we are ready for the first approach. Even with the other approach, the result is not that encouraging simply because the majority have no compassion of doing that.
No comments:
Post a Comment