I found this description of life in Japan's Edo period when recycling was integrated into absolutely every aspect of daily life quite fascinating.
Japan's sustainable society in the Edo period (1603-1867)
Novelist Eisuke Ishikawa is one of Japan's leading researchers on the Edo Period. With reference to his book "The Edo Period had a Recycling Society," ("O-edo recycle jijo": published in 1994, Kodansha Publishing Company) we now introduce some elements of what made this sustainable society possible for 250 years. This month's issue of the JFS Newsletter focuses on the reuse and recycling practices of the Edo Period. Next month we will focus on its energy systems, showing that at the time Japan was a nation that functioned based on plants.
Japan is now promoting efforts to recycle end-of-life products and materials. A major motivation for this today is to reduce the burden on landfills and prevent dioxins and other toxic chemical emissions from incinerators. But people in Edo Japan recycled of goods and materials for another reason: they had very limited goods and materials in the first place.
As a result, everything was treated as a valuable resource, including materials that would otherwise be considered a nuisance, such as ash. Because brand new goods were expensive and newly manufactures items were virtually unaffordable for ordinary citizens, most "end-of-life" goods were not discarded as waste, but rather reused and recycled.
Many specialized traders and craftsmen were also engaged in reuse and recycling (though there was no word for recycling, since "recycling" was just a normal part of life). Below we introduce some of the specialized recyclers of the Edo Period.More at
http://www.energybulletin.net/5140.html
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