Narrow rectangles of burnt amber and orange form a veil of terracotta, reminiscent of falling rain, over the concrete surface of the building. Inside, an earnest guitarist croons ‘Beauty and the Beast’. The space is buzzing with a smartly turned out crowd quaffing artisanal cocktails of citrus fruit and shiitake mushrooms. Caramelised walnut canapés jostle for attention with tuna and cheese hors d’oeuvres.
But this is not just another of Tokyo’s multitude of hipster bars. The cocktail-sippers are watching thousands of tonnes of garbage — plastic bags, food waste, and paper — being lifted and churned by a gigantic mechanical claw. On closer investigation, it transpires that the cocktails are made of fruit and fungi that have been rejected by supermarkets due to their “unacceptable” texture or shape. The canapés are made of recently expired ingredients. This is in fact the ‘Garbage Pit Bar’, named for its location inside the waste disposal centre of one of Tokyo’s western suburbs, Musashino.
Change of image
Tsutomo Takahashi, a plant supervisor, explains that the idea of starting this bar came from the realisation that garbage was in need of a “change of image”, from annoyance that no one wants to think about, to something important that everyone should think about.
The processing centre in Musashino handles about 100 trucks, each carrying some 1,40,000 kg of trash every day. The garbage is sorted into what’s burnable — food waste, paper, some kinds of plastic and wood — and incombustible such as metal, glass and PET bottles. The burnable waste is incinerated. It takes up to three hours to burn 2,500 kg of trash and reduce it to ash. The flue gas released in this process is used to turn electricity-generating turbines that power all the processing centre’s operations, in addition to supplying power to nearby buildings like the City Hall and district Community Centre. Excess electricity is sold to a power company.
The ash is used as a construction material, mixed into cement. Iron and other usable metals are extracted from it for reuse. PET bottles are recycled into new bottles, fabrics and stationery like ballpoint pens. In fact, the jerseys of soccer teams like Arsenal, Manchester City and Barcelona have been made of recycled PET bottles from Japan for years.
Despite being separated from this entire process by glass windows alone, the clientèle of the Garbage Pit Bar remain undisturbed by either the auditory or olfactory accompaniments of garbage processing. Mr. Takahashi explains that maintaining the pressure inside the mixing pit at a lower level than that of the surrounding areas contains the smell. And the glass used to encase the pit is sound-proof.
Not all garbage processing centres in Japan are as innovative as Musashino’s. But Japan’s handling of its refuse is exemplary. Residents must sort their trash into different categories placed in local authority-designated bags. Badly sorted garbage is returned. Businesses have to pay for recyclables to be collected.
Increasingly, the emphasis is on reduction. And it seems to be working. In 2016, Tokyo’s waste totalled 2.78 million tonnes, down from a record high of 4.9 million tonnes in 1989. Of that 2016 total, only about one-eighth ended up in landfills. The rest was incinerated in centres like Musashino’s. And yet, the city estimates that even after accounting for a declining population, Tokyo’s landfills will be full, with no further space to expand, in about 50 years. “This gives us a lot to think about,” says Ms. Kawashima, at the Gomi Pit Bar with her two children and husband. “Everyone needs to be more careful with their garbage.”
