- [Narrator] The village of Kamikatsu is special.
Not for its tea fields or idyllic mountains
or peaceful historic homes.
It's known for something it doesn't have.
Kamikatsu, as a town, produces almost no trash.
Kamikatsu has a population of roughly 1,500 people
and in the 1990s was doing nearly no recycling.
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Burning all that garbage created carbon dioxide omissions
that became dangerous, and the nature around them
was suffering, so a decision was made.
Kamikatsu had to change.
This was the start of their path toward zero waste
and a new way of living.
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Effectively, what zero waste here means
is that there's no such thing
as throwing something in the trash.
Everything has to get recycled.
And in the beginning, it was difficult for everyone.
Like Mr. Takuya Takeichi.
He's shop owner in Kamikatsu.
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And Mrs. Hachie Katayama.
She's a housewife.
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That classification system she's talking about
is the key to Kamikatsu's success, and it is aggressive.
There are 45 categories of recyclables.
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The list, it goes on; there's 35 more.
Slowly, what was originally this huge burden
became a way of life in Kamikatsu.
People began looking at trash differently.
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It's important to recognize that Kamikatsu is a small town.
It is not like New York or London.
The rules are not the same, but there is a constant,
and that's people; they can change.
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