In recent years, environmental problems, especially garbage (general waste) problems are getting worse as urban development progresses. According to the statistics of the Ministry of the Environment of Waste and Recycling Countermeasures Department of the Waste Management Division of the 47 prefectures, the amount of garbage discharge per person per day in Nagano Prefecture has been low for 2 consecutive years from 2014 to 2015. It is ranked first for the least amount of garbage in the country.
Environmental conservation activities in this research refer to those activities such as reduction of waste (general waste), treatment and recycling. In order to promote the formation of a recycling-based society, it is necessary to clarify the actual situation of environmental conservation activities by civic cooperation in Nagano Prefecture. Although there are many previous studies on civic cooperation, environmental conservation activities, but there is no comparison and analysis of the actual situation of environmental conservation activities by civic cooperation for all municipalities in one prefecture. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire survey on the actual situation of environmental conservation activities by civic cooperation in Nagano prefecture to administrative officials concerning environmental conservation of 77 municipalities in Nagano prefecture.
Findings: 1) The municipalities groups in Nagano prefecture, which engage in the preservation of the environment by government-led& citizen participation scheme and citizen group-led& citizen participation scheme, show a tendency of drastically decreased amount of waste reduction. 2) The contents of environmental preservation activities implemented in regional collaboration are mainly concerned with conservation of rivers 3) Reducing household waste reduction is more effective than reducing garbage in business community.
Issues: 1) City and town have many types of environmental preservation activities than village 2) More than half of municipalities are ungrasping about the result of activities 3) Nearly 30% of municipalities feel that human resource development is necessary with cooperation partners.
To plan for activities that foreigners can easily participate in the future, we must devise measures to improve awareness of the environmental issues among foreigners and motivate them for more participation.
