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TOKYO -- Roughly 40 percent of municipalities in Japan demand guardians take their children's soiled diapers home from public day cares, a survey by a private organization has revealed. It's a public administrative duty to support child care in the community, so why do so many local governments not promote diaper disposal at day care centers?

"Why should I take them (used diapers) home? I've never told the day care that it bothers me because I don't want to make waves. But it's strange," said a 43-year-old woman who sends her 2-year-old daughter to a day care center in the city of Kyoto. Every time she goes to pick up her daughter, she is asked to bring home three or four used diapers in a bag. When she gets home, she throws them straight into the trash.

Osaka-based Baby Job Inc., which offers a subscription-based diaper service for day care centers, conducted a survey on what's happening to used diapers at the child care facilities via its "association to eliminate diaper take-homes from day care centers."

Starting in February this year, the association interviewed each of the 1,461 municipalities in Japan that run public day care centers, and if even one of the centers asked parents to take used diapers home, the municipality was classified as one with a "take-home" policy. The results showed 39% of the municipalities fell into that category. On the other hand, 49% of them were "non-take-home" municipalities. Eleven percent said they were unaware of their day cares' diaper policies, or answered "other."

The prefectures with the highest rates of "take-home" municipalities were Shiga (89%), Nagano (85%), Kagawa (75%), Kyoto (73%), Shimane (67%), Yamaguchi (67%), Fukui (65%), Okayama (60%), Miyazaki (60%), and Tokushima (59%).

Meanwhile, Ehime, Ishikawa, and Aomori prefectures did not have any municipalities that have a "take-home" policy. Those with low percentages were Okinawa (5%), Akita (6%), Toyama (7%), Niigata (12%), Yamagata (14%), Ibaraki (16%), and Tokyo (17%).

When asked about the reasons for asking people to take home soiled diapers, the municipalities' responses fell into five categories. The most common was "checking the child's physical condition by their stool" at 43%, followed by "it's a continuing practice, or reasons unknown" at 30%, "problems in arranging storage and collection of garbage" at 14%, and "budget not available" at 9%.

According to the Kyoto city government, a "take-home" municipality, it has been asking guardians to take home used diapers from public day care centers since April 2011, when it switched from cloth to disposable diapers to eliminate the "public-private gap" with private facilities, where disposables had become the norm.

Naohiko Kinoshita, director of the city's division dealing with public day cares, commented, "In addition to our 14 day care centers, there are many private facilities and those combining the functions of a kindergarten and a day care, and the city as a whole needs to think about this (issue)."

He added, "Municipalities have to decide what to do with the tight budgets they have. If the local government has to bear the cost as business waste, it has to deal with the budget for that."

In the city of Fukuoka, all seven public day care centers require guardians to take used diapers home, and "this practice has been going on since the days of cloth diapers," said Yukinori Abe, director of the municipal government's guidance and inspection division of the children's future bureau. He added, "We want the guardians to keep track of their children's health conditions, such as the number of times they defecate.

"Guardians purchase crayons and other items that are used by individual children at the center. One idea is that the same goes for diapers, with guardians bearing the cost of their disposal," he went on.

Yuiko Fujita, a Meiji University sociology professor who has written several books including "Wanope Ikuji" (One operation child care), was indignant at the situation.

"I think the current situation (of taking home used diapers) is allowed to prevail because our society has little awareness of raising children together, and the idea that it's the responsibility of the mother to take care of the children and their excrement is deeply rooted."

Saitama University associate professor of public finance and child care policy expert Masayuki Takahashi pointed out, "Not only on this issue, but on any policy, municipalities bring up 'budget constraints' when they are looking for reasons not to do something. Municipalities that use their budget as a reason may be less aware of this issue or may not want to add to their workload."

He added, "In Japan, if a neighboring municipality takes action, things tend to move forward like dominoes falling, and if momentum builds, it can be expected to spread naturally. It would be ideal if communication among parents, child care workers and day care centers could be deepened and improvements made through their requests to the local government."

(Japanese original by Miyuki Fujisawa, Digital News Center)

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