Research Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management
Outline of Research ( pamphlet )
In order to create a sustainable society, it is necessary to ensure sound material cycles and promote research on appropriate waste management procedures. The Research Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management, in addition to playing a key role in the “Priority Program on Sustainable Material Cycles”, engages in fundamental research focused on developing techniques for proper treatment and disposal of waste, evaluating experiments, monitoring, and risk management for waste asbestos.
Research to Ensure Appropriate Waste Management Practices
During the first five-year plan (2001-2005), the Research Center for Material Cycles and Waste Management made efforts to realize a sustainable material-cycle society and safe and secure waste management. The Center is now building on those efforts by performing preventative and long-term research in collaboration with administrative agencies and domestic and international research organizations to determine how to respond to new and increasingly difficult problems in waste management and to develop fundamental technologies that can help to support sustainable material cycles in the future. Our work involves:
- Establishing safe and secure technologies for appropriate waste treatment and disposal to support a sound material-cycle society
- Integrating testing, assessment, and monitoring techniques
- Improving waste treatment technologies for liquid and organic waste
- Developing measures against negative legacies caused by inadequate management of waste
An example of our research findings: We developed a simplified method for monitoring dioxin concentrations in waste using bioassays.
Fundamental Research
The Center also undertakes research on the risk management of waste asbestos and develops fundamental material-cycle technologies. It is also creating a database system which includes data related to resource to material cycles and waste disposal.
http://www-cycle.nies.go.jp/index-e.html
An example of our research findings: In order to assist in the development of new johkasou(on-site wastewater treatment system technologies, we developed a performance assessment method using standard concentration regulators and characterized the microbial communities in the systems.
For More Information...
More information about the Center’s research and activities can be seen on our website. We also produce an online magazine (in Japanese) called KannKann that introduces key concepts in our research on material cycles and waste management in a way that can be understood by people of high school age and older.
http://www-cycle.nies.go.jp/magazine/index.html