The Japanese Ministry of the Environment has chosen eight outstanding demonstration projects for fiscal 2005 in the field of creating a recycling-based society. The model projects exemplify innovative and ingenious ways to reduce, reuse, recycle and pursue green purchasing that could also be applied in other fields.

The ministry launched this project in fiscal 2003 to promote local initiatives to create a recycling-based society. In fiscal 2005, 36 applications were sent from around the country between June 21 and July 22. After a screening by academic experts outside of the ministry, eight projects were chosen, as described below.

1. Art workshops that reuse waste unique to fishing communities, such as seashells and driftwood.

2. A project to create a recycling-based local society by linking rural and urban areas through food.

3. A plastic bottle cap recycling project.

4. A cooperative project with electric appliance retailers to create an appropriate system for disposing of fluorescent lamps.

5. A citizen project to promote exchange and coexistence between urban and semi-mountainous areas through products and waste.

6. A project to create distribution channels for unused byproducts of forest maintenance, especially bamboo.

7. An awareness-raising project about recycling food packaging in major cities

8. A demonstration project to recycle unused clothing resources locally.