Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism will promote reuse of soil produced by public construction works. It will make revisions of the rules to allow soil reuse at other public construction sites within 70 kilometers radius, expanding 20 kilometers wider. Intending to promote soil reuse at private constructions, the Ministry will invite private sectors nationwide which can accept surplus soil. It is one of the Ministry’s approaches to cope with increasing amount of soil that will be generated by large scaled tunnel works planned in Tokyo.

The Ministry plans to address reuse of surplus soil as a part of “Plans for Promotion of Recycling in Construction,” which will be decided in 2014. While the recycling rate of soil was 78.6% in 2008, the existing plan aims to achieve 87% in 2012 and 90% in 2015.

Tokyo is expecting a series of large scaled tunnel constructions such as Tokyo Outer Ring Road and Maglev express railways excavating large amount of soil. MLIT considers it is necessary to increase the capacity of treatment yards. The existing recycling rule provides that construction surplus soil is to be delivered to and reused at other sites no further than 50 kilometers. The ministry hopes to prepare more options of soil treatment by expanding the radius to as wide as 70 km, though it costs more for transportation.

Soil recycling at private construction sites will be also promoted. Some of regional bureaus of MLIT invite private sectors capable of reusing soil for residential land development, embankment etc. The ministry plans to introduce the same procedure in all regions in addition to exploring other options. (2013/10/17)