Illegal dumping destroys forests and water sources--nature falling between the cracks of the system (December 2000)

Illegal dumping destroys forests and water sources--nature falling between the cracks of the system (December 2000)

In the late 1990s, illegal dumping of industrial waste increased sharply in Japan, with 5,709 complaints received nationwide in FY1999, a higher rate than the typical seven pollutants such as noise, odor, and air pollution. Most of the illegal dumping took place in mountain forests and water sources, and the impact on the ecosystem was becoming increasingly serious.

In the background is the tightness of final disposal sites. The national average remaining life is only 1.6 years. Unable to secure a disposal site, industrial waste disposal companies have increasingly tended to avoid new transactions or to engage in illegal disposal. Under the current Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law, municipalities do not have the authority to restrict the location of disposal sites, and the system does not prevent dumping near water sources.

In response to this situation, a revised Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law was enacted in June 2000, which strengthened the manifest system and clarified the responsibility of waste generators, but delays in institutional development have not stopped environmental destruction in many areas. Impacts such as water pollution, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity had already become apparent, and residents voiced their concerns that nature would be destroyed before the system was put in place.