Japanese/Nat Japans largest combustible waste incinerator is also at the forefront of Tokyo's efforts to create a greener city. The incinerator, built on reclaimed land, creates enough heat energy to provide the plant's own electricity, heating, air conditioning and hot water. These by-products are also channelled to public facilities, like the Yumenoshima Tropical Plant Dome - a showcase of the potential of harnessing heat energy. Waste management and recycling have long been problems for most, if not all, of the world's cities. Now the Tokyo metropolitan government is leading the way to solve at least some of these problems. Japan built its largest waste incinerator here on Yumenoshima (or "Dream Island") - a waste landfill site in the Tokyo Bay area. Almost two thousand tonnes of combustible waste are fed into this Tokyo incinerator every day, around the clock. This is one of 14 similar plants throughout the Japanese capital, designed to cope with the growing waste disposal problem. The waste needs to be sorted into combustibles and incombustibles. Waste products such as plastics, rubber and leather generate harmful gases and are taken to landfill sites instead. The rest is burnt. The scorching temperatures inside the furnace generates the energy necessary to drive steam turbines which in turn produce electricity and heat. This method is at the forefront of Japan's drive to create a cleaner environment. SOUNDBITE: (Japanese) "About 18-thousand tonnes of garbage is brought here everyday, here at this plant we can boil 150 tonnes of water per hour (to make steam)". SUPER CAPTION: Mitsui Morimoto - Chief engineer of Koto Incineration Plant What makes these plants environment-friendly is their effective use of recovered heat energy. One of the beneficiaries is the local community, which gets free hot water, air conditioning and electricity in public facilities such as gyms and community centres. SOUNDBITE: (Japanese ) "Around incineration plants there are various public facilities such as public apartment compounds, swimming pools and glasshouses to which we supply heat energy." SUPER CAPTION: Mitsui Morimoto - Chief engineer of Koto Incineration Plant One such facility benefiting from the harnessing of the heat and vapour produced during the incineration is the Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome. The glass house receives the hot water and vapour via a highway of pipes connecting it with the incinerator. The greenhouse was built modelling itself on a tropical rain forest, which has high temperatures and high rainfall throughout the year. The hot-house is home to over 800 varieties of tropical plants, some of which come from the rain forests of South East Asia, the Amazon Valley and the Zaire Valley in Africa. As far as keeping the temperature high and humid, the Koto vapour is a success. The only problem the greenhouse has is receiving enough light. The continued growth under artificial conditions serves not only as a technological feat but as an educational centre. It provides a living teaching ground for people to become more aware of environmental issues and at the same time about the world in which they live. To create and maintain such a fragile environment takes commitment - not only from the Tokyo metropolitan government. The funding and resourcing of such projects is not cheap. The construction of this project cost 26 (m) million US dollar. The underlying theme of this beauty is the recycling of waste. SOUNDBITE: (Japanese) SUPER CAPTION: Emiko Nakazawa - Head Gardner Yumenoshima With operations like these, the fragile link between man and the environment is getting stronger. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/fcf5946a461d46a2f3bfa26626ff0353 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork