Page 177 - Changing Living Spaces

8

Structural Changes in Fertilizer Circulation
8
in Modern Japan: Analysis Based

on the Change in Relationship between
the Use of Night Soil and the Disposal

of Human Waste

Noriko Yuzawa
Hosei University, Japan

© 2024 Noriko Yuzawa
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-399-9.175-187

Introduction
This study examines the structural changes in material cycles that ac-
companied economic and social changes in Japan during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. In particular, we focus on the use of night soil in
agriculture and sewage treatment in cities, and highlight the changes in
the relationship between the two.
Agriculture is intrinsically based on the cycle of materials. Materials
and their cycles are closely related to the natural conditions and agricul-
tural technology of each era and region and change accordingly.
Take the example of fertilizer: in the Edo period, various organic ma-
terials such as grass, seaweed, shellfish, and animal dung were brought to
agricultural lands, much of which was human waste. All of these were im-
portant fertilizers for farm self-sufficiency. As crop production increased,
purchased fertilizers such as fish fertilizer (made from fish waste) and
soybean meal were introduced for the market. Guano (bird droppings)
was also newly introduced as a fertilizer, along with chemical fertilizers.
The introduction of such fertilizers and their combinations led to changes
in the mechanism of ‘self-sufficient material cycles’ within management

Murayama, S., Ž. Lazarević, and A. Panjek, eds. 2024. Changing Living
Spaces: Subsistence and Sustenance in Eurasian Economies from Early Modern
Times to the Present. Koper: University of Primorska Press.

175