Memories of Water Echoing in a Garden of Waste Coal - Kawachinagano City, Osaka Prefecture and Togura Town, Nagano Prefecture, September 1995

Memories of Water Echoing in a Garden of Waste Coal - Kawachinagano City, Osaka Prefecture and Togura Town, Nagano Prefecture, September 1995
In 1995, Japan was in the midst of a recession following the bursting of the bubble economy, but against the backdrop of growing environmental awareness, local communities were making their own attempts to improve water quality. Amano Country Club in Kawachinagano City, Osaka Prefecture, conducted charcoal burning on its premises and sunk homemade charcoal into ponds and waterways to absorb harmful substances and control pesticide residue. The club also utilizes wood vinegar solution for pest control and charcoal ash for soil improvement, attracting attention as a symbolic effort by a golf course to reduce its environmental impact. Meanwhile, the town of Togura in Nagano Prefecture introduced charcoal to agricultural water to alleviate pollution from domestic wastewater and agricultural chemicals. As a result, genji botaru (Japanese fireflies), which had disappeared, were once again seen, giving residents hope for environmental restoration. Charcoal was a recycling-oriented t
echnology that could be used repeatedly and reused as soil improvement material after degradation. At the time, the Forestry Agency and the Environment Agency were promoting the development of new applications for thinned and unused wood, and this initiative anticipated that trend. The adsorption action of charcoal, the use of wood vinegar solution, and the improvement of water quality using fireflies as an indicator were examples of concrete answers to the problems of waste and water quality deterioration that Japan faced in the mid-1990s, and were remembered as symbols of the challenge to "turn waste wood into a guardian of water.