Lessons Learned: Success in Waste Management in Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan

Abstract

          The objective of this study was to find out the lessons of waste management and to analyze the key factors of waste management success in Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. This research was a qualitative research, and the research tools comprised of documents, action plan, electronic documents and related publications. The criteria for selecting documents was that the documents must be reliable and have been available at least 5 years. The researcher used the thematic analysis as a method to analyze the data and determined the issues to explain the lesson learned of waste management and to analyze the key factors of waste management success of the four countries.
          The results of the study revealed that all four countries adopted the 3Rs concept for separating waste from the source and divided the trash according to the types of waste. When considering the overall waste management process, it can be divided into 3 main groups: sorting, collection and transport, and law.  First, it was found that Japan and South Korea were outstanding in raising awareness of the people for waste management. Second, there were measures to force the people to come out of their own cars to dispose of trash in Taiwan. The removal was also similar to Japan and South Korea in bringing technology to help waste management. Regarding the law or issuing measures, it was found that the four countries had issued similar measures. In other words, the people took part in their own responsibility. It was also found that South Korea and Taiwan have developed applications to assist in the waste collection and transport. The suggestion from this study was to emphasize raising awareness of the correct waste separation and promoting true participatory integration. Moreover, the government have been required to play a role in the mechanism of the market more than before.