Mr. Toshihiro Chayamichi, Manager, Global Environment Division, Environment Bureau, Kobe City Government

Mr. Toshihiro Chayamichi explained the measures employed by Kobe City Government to educate on environmental preservation and promote a cleaner urban environment.

As well as formulating polices to improve waste management and clean the city, the Environment Bureau of Kobe encourages the participation and initiatives of citizens to help achieve its aim. Not responsible for actual waste management, the Global Environment Division’s broad aim to make an ecologically sound city of Kobe requires communities, schools, households and individuals to change their mindsets to assist with recycling, cleaning and waste reduction. As well as working with local institutions on environmental studies, the Global Environment Division has collaborated with the Education Board to incorporate waste management education into the curriculum of school students. A Social Studies course and supplementary reading materials teach 4th grade elementary students on the importance of reducing, recycling and reusing waste, and the broader theme of environmental preservation and global warming prevention. Environment Department staff use a real garbage truck to show students how their waste is collected, and demonstrate non-hazardous disposal and separation through games and practical activities. The scheme is well accepted by children, and the ripple effect of educating the 13,500 4th graders at Kobe’s 166 primary schools means that their families are also educated. 

Waste management and environmental education at an elementary school (top) and the Kobe Environment and Future Pavilion (bottom)

Also to educate the community, the Kobe Environment and Future Pavilion was opened in 2004 as a main institution to promote environmental awareness (see p. 12). The Global Environment Division mobilizes community groups to assist with making an ‘eco-town’ of Kobe. It provides subsidies and organizational facilities and advice, so that local groups can conduct information dissemination, park and road cleaning, paper collecting and recycling, and waste disposal observation activities. At the end of fiscal 2008, 85 districts had such groups, and the network continues to expand. They are provided with initial support of 20,000 yen, and in turn have to produce and distribute their own local information material. Further subsidies for this are calculated by the number of documents issued by 5 yen, 4 times per year, with an upper limit of 100,000 yen. The assessment of each group’s achievements decides further subsidies. Applications are filed for the beginning of each year, and subsidies have to be accounted for and returned at the end of the year. 

At the Global Environment Division website, citizens can sign an online declaration of their commitment to environmental improvement through reducing their carbon dioxide output, by recycling and using a list of 12 energy saving items, like reusable shopping bags and public transport. They learn what they can do to improve their city’s environment, and can attend local study groups to share ideas and practices. 

The Global Environment Division has also taken steps to improve the environment of the downtown area of Kobe. Effective since April 2008, a ban on smoking in the street covers an area 800 meters from east to west and 500 meters north to south, 5 street kilometers of streets, with a fine for violators of 1,000 yen. Five teams of two retired police officers patrol the area from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm to enforce the fining system. In the nine months to March 2009, 3,051 fines were collected, and a drop in the smoking rate throughout the city has been recorded. To clean the streets of the city, the number of waste bins has been reduced, and citizens are encouraged to take their waste home. Only around 90 waste bins remain, in downtown tourist areas, which are emptied each morning. Citizen groups are mobilized to clean their local streets too. Such campaigns mobilized over 72,000 citizens to join local cleaning activities in 2008, again showing how community involvement is achieved in improving the urban environmental management of the city, with cost-effective support from the government.