By Karen Stephenson

An hour's drive away from the nearest metropolis, Kamikatsu is a town nestled among cedar-blanketed mountains on Shikoku Island in Japan. Its residents are engaged in a revolution to set an example to the world. Kamikatsu's 2,000 residents are determined to radically alter their relationship to the environment.

Their goal is an ambitious one - banish all waste by 2020. They have dispensed with public trash receptacles and have set up the Zero Waste Academy. The town dump no longer exists as it was transformed into an outdoor sorting station that boasts 34 categories of trash from bottle caps to fluorescent lights and everything in between.

Kamikatsu has taken recycling to the extreme and is one small indicator of Japan's drive to position itself as a leader in the quest for a greener planet. There's little doubt that this community has pushed recycling as far as it can go, but it is representative of an all-inclusive effort in individual recycling and factory efficiency, to trading in electronic trash.

The picturesque island on which Kamikatsu is situated had become an environmental nightmare only forty years ago with some of its cities experiencing the high health care costs of rapid postwar industrialization. However, the strength that Japan possesses that propelled it to be an economic leader has also helped fuel its desire to lay a foundation for an energy-efficient and less-polluting society.

Recycling efforts have become top priority in Japan, as has progress in reducing waste in everything from cars to copy machines. In Japan, and especially in Canada and the United States, cellphones and computers seem to become obsolete faster than it takes the average person to learn how to proficiently use them. Japan is emerging as a top competitor in urban mining - safely extracting valuable metals from such electronics for industrial reuse.

Japan has a better track record than the United States on a number of issues, including reducing electronic waste, recycling, and energy-efficiency. Japan is seen globally as a technological leader and the world is watching its initiatives in recycling and reducing electronic waste.

At Toyota's Tsutsumi assembly plant in Nagoya, what was once a vast, gray expanse of industrial might now boasts 50,000 trees that were planted in May, 2009. Insulating vines wind their way up the outside of an employee locker building; 22,000 square meters of exterior walls are coated with photocatalytic paint that, Toyota says, mirrors the ability of 2,000 poplars to absorb nitrous oxide and process oxygen.

The Visitor Center's roof is grass, designed to reduce summer's heat by 3 degrees Celsius. Solar lights dot the streets and 800-kilowatt solar panels blanket the tops of buildings. Even the red roadside flowers were genetically engineered to absorb noxious emissions and help evaporate water!

Behind Tsutsumi's transformation lies one of the globe's most visible bids to lighten the automobile's carbon footprint: the Prius. "Cars are a burden to the environment, but the hybrid helps," says Osamu Terada, leader of the sustainable plant initiative. "The plant is also important - we don't want manufacturing to cause a further burden."

Like the Prius, the Tsutsumi factory relies on hybrid power, getting 50% of its electricity from solar panels and 50% from capturing waste heat generated within the plant. The facility has reduced its carbon-dioxide emissions to half what they were in 1990, even though there's been an increase in production. It eliminated production of landfill waste in 1999 and did away with incinerated waste in March, 2009.

At Dowa Eco-System Recycling Co. in Honjo, Japan, Yoshihiko Maeda sees cell phone recycling as crucial to the environment. Usually one cell phone, which weighs 100-130 grams, contains .04 grams of gold, according to Dowa officials. It may seem like a small amount but it's valuable to manufacturers in growing competition for resources, and to recyclers who can extract and refine it to the same purity as mined gold.

Recovering the contents of everything from air conditioners to circuit boards has become a global priority as some manufacturers have moved production from developed to developing countries which lack proper recycling facilities. Extracting materials is lucrative. But due to the difficulties in automation, unsafe extraction practices can expose workers to dangerous materials.

Sonoe Fujii is the director of Zero Waste Academy. She is determined to show Japan and the world that a town the size of Kamikatsu can have zero waste. Kikue Nii, a retiree, is a resident of Kamikatsu who diligently sorts her garbage and takes it to the Zero Waste Academy. She says it adds time to her daily chores, but gracefully accepts this as a lifestyle change that everyone needs to make.

Fujii extols Nii's efforts to the world. She says thanks to people like Nii because it is they who are helping to change perceptions. "Garbage has a negative connotation but when garbage is brought to the town dump that can be recycled, it can have a new life. People smile and chat about garbage. They have made a strong contribution," boasts Fujii.

The Zero Waste Academy policy benefits the environment and it also saves money by allowing for greater town investment in education as well as other things. The Academy also recycles 80% of their trash into useful items that are sold at their "on-site" store.

Greenpeace promotes this initiative worldwide, especially in Australia, England and across Japan.

Sonoe Fujii hopes that recycling won't be so onerous in the future as manufacturers figure out how to reduce waste and reuse more materials. The next move has to come from business, she asserts. For now, the town of Kamikatsu is aiming to meet its 2020 goal - and the prospect is energizing townspeople of all ages.