The Yomiuri Shimbun repors that the Yokohama municipal government is to reward neighborhood associations for their collective recycling efforts by distributing 300 million yen earned from selling recycled waste such as plastic bottles and used paper.

The city‘‘s efforts to reduce waste started in fiscal 2003. Recycling activities, which include the strict separation of garbage, decreased waste in fiscal 2006 by 30 percent compared with fiscal 2003. To allow citizens to feel that their efforts have been worthwhile, the government decided to give back some of its profit.

An official of the city‘‘s Resources and Wastes Recycling Bureau said, "We made the decision to reward our citizens for their accomplishments and to provide further motivation for more recycling." The reward, which will take the form of goods rather than cash, will be made to all 3,000 neighborhood and residents associations in Yokohama. Each association can choose from 25 items, including emergency supplies such as portable toilets, security equipment and reflective jackets, as well as nets to protect garbage from crows.

The amount to be distributed is based on a calculation of 230 yen per household. Consequently, some large neighborhood associations will receive goods worth several hundreds of thousands of yen. Catalogues of items will be sent to associations by the end of this month to allow them to receive the items within this fiscal year.

The government initially had planned only to distribute cash to the top performing associations. However, after finding it difficult to gauge each association‘‘s efforts, it decided instead to spend the funds on equipment beneficial to the associations‘‘ activities and to distribute the goods equally.