If you think working out whether your rubbish should go into the recycling bin or not, spare a thought for the residents of the tiny Japanese town of Kamikatsu.

The 1,500-odd locals in this village have to sort their waste into 45 different categories.

It's part of the town's ambitious goal of producing zero waste by 2020.

"The purpose is to recycle whatever we can recycle," says the town waste station's manager, Kazuyuki Kiyohara.

"What we can sell as resources becomes town revenue — [everything else] we try to process at a low cost.

"If all the waste collected turns into resources, it's zero-waste."

Kamikatsu's waste station manager, Kazuyuki Kiyohara. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Recycling cheaper than incineration

Nestled between green hills and the narrow winding roads of Tokushima prefecture, Kamikatsu looks any other village in provincial Japan. And until the early 2000s it followed the typically Japanese way of disposing of rubbish — incineration.

But when the Japanese government introduced strict new regulations cracking down on the toxic chemicals emitted by this process, the town was forced to close its incineration plant.

The Japanese town of Kamikatsu, nestled in a luscious green valley. ( ABC News: Jake Sturmer )

The crisis forced Kamikatsu residents to radically rethink how they dispose of rubbish, and eventually led to the ambitious goal of going totally waste free.

These days, with the nearest incinerator located in another town, it costs six times more to transport and burn waste than it does to recycle it.

Food scraps are mostly composted and more than 80 per cent of the town's other waste is now recycled.

Stacks of newspapers separated from other waste. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Cardboard is separated from paper. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

The remaining 20 per cent that can't currently be processed — things like nappies and certain types of plastics — gets sent off to be incinerated.

This tiny town out on the fringes has become an glittering epicentre for the world's waste experts, who jet in to see first hand how it's done.

But in order to secure a cleaner future, Kamikatsu's residents are forced to get their hands dirty.

A Kamikatsu resident rinses a water bottle. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

How it works

At the town's waste centre, a man is smashing a porcelain toilet into hundreds of tiny pieces with a hammer.

He's trying to get at and separate the plastic, rubber and metal hidden inside so that each material can be sorted into one of the 45 recycling categories at the plant.

In Kamikatsu, even the simplest of recyclable materials must be dismantled in similar fashion before it can be disposed of.

Empty cardboard milk cartons are hung up to dry at the Kamikatsu recycling plant. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

A plastic water bottle must first be washed and stripped of its label and lid before it is ready to be disposed of in one of the dozens of boxes in the depot.

Glass is separated by colour, and everything from chopsticks to batteries to printer cartridges must be meticulously sorted.

Toothbrush recycling at Kamikatsu plant ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Printer cartridge recycling at Kamikatsu plant. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Many residents are elderly and no longer have cars so local government workers and volunteers visit once a month to collect rubbish.

But that's an exception — most people have to haul their own rubbish to the recycling centre. There's no curbside collection; no yellow or blue-lid bins.

Kamikatsu residents bring their waste to the recycling plant. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

The sheer inconvenience of the process can act as a deterrent to excess consumption in the first place.

"Doing these very detailed categories of separation … actually makes people start to think about the beginning," says Akira Sakano from Kamikatsu's Zero Waste Academy.

"Because with the segregation of waste, they don't want to [have to sort into] these 45 categories.

"So they actually start thinking about that when they buy stuff."

In its bid to go waste free, the town is facing a challenge deeply rooted in Japanese culture.

Japan's packaging problem

Kamikatsu calls itself one of Japan's most beautiful towns, and it's not hard to see why.

83-year-old Kamikatsu grandmother Hifumi Nishi, whose beautiful house sits atop the steep hills of the town. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Among lush trees, a steep path leads to a tiny wooden house. Hifumi Nishi, an 83-year-old grandmother, has walked up and down this path for 60 years.

She now lives in an aged-care facility but comes back home regularly.

The path leading up to a house in the hills of Kamikatsu, Japan. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

"I think about reducing [waste], but there's always rubbish — whatever you buy there's always a plastic bag," she said.

"I wash and clean everything. Recently I started to have to separate the package and wrapping of sweets.

"If you put [all of your rubbish] together it's dirty. It takes some work but it's better to recycle."

The sheer inconvenience makes people think twice about what they buy. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

Japan's love of plastic and packaging is posing a problem for the town's goal of going waste free.

Supermarkets are full of individually wrapped fruits and vegetables like pineapples, mangoes and bananas.

"Japanese culture is really based on this wrapping, decoration and gifting culture," Ms Sakano said.

"At the same time, lots of consumers and companies have been working towards how we make products safe and clean, so that's why there's this packaging."

Domestically Japan uses around 9.64 million tonnes of plastic per year according to the most recent figures from Japan's industry-funded Plastic Waste Management Institute.

Japan does not have the space for landfill and incineration is the country's method of choice for disposing of waste.

Outside of Kamikatsu, Japanese residents still separate their rubbish into several (although far fewer) categories such as burnable items, cardboard/paper, plastic bottles, glass, cans and non-burnable material like batteries.

If it's not properly cleaned and separated, it's not picked up.

Incineration is Japan's method of choice when disposing of waste. ( ABC News: Yumi Asada )

According to the OECD, just 1 per cent of Japan's council waste ends up in landfill compared to 49 per cent in Australia.

In Japan, the Plastic Waste Management Institute said 83 per cent of plastics were recycled or incinerated, generating power and heating local facilities like pools in the process.

But in Kamikatsu, with the 2020 deadline fast approaching, the final hurdles to going waste free could prove the most difficult because they will require changes from product manufacturers.

"[Kamikatsu's] recycling rate … is very high and it's already a big achievement," Ms Sakano said.

"But looking at the rest of the 20 per cent, that's a challenge."