KYOTO -- Nagoya may have taken the No. 1 spot in a recent contest ranking the nation's municipalities on their environmental initiatives, but its overall score illustrates that many hurdles remain before any Japanese city can truly be called eco-friendly.
An environmental organization network held the nation's first-ever "eco-city" contest to rank municipalities on how far environmental considerations are integrated into policies and how involved citizens are in planning and implementing policies.
Nagoya boasted a 23 percent drop in the amount of waste it collected, from 1.02 million tons in 1999 to 787,000 tons in 2001, Mayor Takehisa Matsubara told a gathering of municipal leaders and environmental groups this week.