Abstract
Three questionnaire surveys were carried out in order to clarify the current status of household hazardous waste (HHW) generation, collection, and disposal. The survey was conducted amongst residents in the city of Sapporo, it covered 470 municipalities and 185 waste management companies also took part. Fourteen groups of target products were selected based on a list provided by the US EPA, and specific questions were asked for each individual group.
Although municipalities show the source-separation categories in a pamphlet distributed to residents, the categorization system is not standardized and varies among municipalities. In some cases, HHW is classified under just two categories, either combustible or non-combustible waste, which shows a lack of understanding regarding the hazardous nature of some of these wastes. Residents do not pay much notice to information given out by municipalities. When products are assigned to the non-collection category, which means that municipalities are not responsible for pick up, a portion of the residents merely disposed of their HHW along with other non-hazardous wastes. Municipalities must provide contact information for how to dispose of items that fall into the non-collection category, such information is not sufficient at present. In addition, half of the waste management companies do not accept HHW even though they are on the contact list being circulated.
