Chapter II -1 :Quality of the Environment in Japan 1997

Chapter II : How to Utilise Products with Consideration for the Environment

1. Increased Product Use, Increased Environmental Pressure

Increasing Environmental Pressure as Levels of Production/Consumption Increase
Since the Industrial Revolution, the World's economic activities have been expanding, especially in developed nations. During the 40 years preceding 1996, Japan had achieved extremely rapid economic development, with its end GDP 9.4 times bigger than the GDP at the beginning of this growth period. As a result, the current Japanese standard of living has come to have the benefits of "materialistic wealth."
The numbers of automobiles and household electrical appliances have been increasing year by year. Nowadays, it is not surprising to find a household with two colour televisions and two air conditioning units.

Changes in the Number of Major Durable Consumer Goods Owned
per 100 Households
Figure

Source:
Compiled by the Environment Agency from "Trends in Household Consumption: Annual Report on Consumer Trends Survey" published by the Economic Planning Agency

Because our social/economic activities and lifestyles today seek economic efficiency, comfort and convenience, they have come to be dependent on a system of mass-production and mass consumption that requires enormous amounts of resources to support it.
The material balance of Japan in 1995 shows that the total amount of materials used in the country during that year amounted to 2.21 billion tonnes.

Material Balance in Japan
Figure

Note: Due to water absorption, the total amount of production is larger than the total amount of material use.

Source: Calculated by the Environment Agency from various statistics

As economic activities expand and improve, environmentally damaging problems inevitably occur. Two examples of this are, i) the over exploitation of natural resources to a degree that surpasses the natural capacity of those resources to recover, and ii) contamination due to the discharge of waste products. In particular, the increased volume of waste, and the diversity of this waste's component parts, including an increasingly varied quantity of toxic chemical substances, is causing additionally complicated problems.

Water Treatment Flows (1993)
Figure

Note:
1: In these statistics, the amount of garbage generation includes garbage that has been disposed of in site by households, schools, companies etc.
2: The total numbers and the accumulation of each number may not exactly tally because numbers are rounded to the nearest 10,000.

In order to realise a sustainable economic/social development paradigm that will take us into the 21st century, it is necessary to revise the way we use materials and products, and to reduce as much as possible the discharge of substances which harm the environment. It is necessary to make substances move in a cyclic fashion within the economic and social system rather than being discarded. In order to achieve this, it is of particular importance to adequately manage contaminants, and to Implement measures for waste management and recycling.