Quantitative Evaluation of the Past Recycling-oriented Society in Japan: An Analysis of the Edo System in the Late 19th Century

This study focused on the Edo city and the basin of the Tokyo bay in the late 19th century. Edo is the former name of Tokyo, Japan, and was the central political city in the Edo period, which was from 1603 to 1868. In 1603 the Shogunate Government of Edo was formed, and the Edo period was ruled through a feudal system for all of its 265 years. Edo had over one million populations and high levels of consumption at the end of the Edo period, however, it is thought that the water environment of the city area and the Tokyo bay basin was unpolluted, and various and abundant marine resources had existed at that time. The reason is that the sustainable society was realized by means of the human wastes recycling system in the Edo society. In this study, we try to make a quantitative analysis of the "Edo system" from the viewpoint of the socio-economic and environmental aspects.