Collapsed Walls and Buried Memories Japan Map of Construction Waste and Illegal Dumping 1995-2025

Collapsed Walls and Buried Memories Japan Map of Construction Waste and Illegal Dumping 1995-2025

Construction waste still quietly covers the soil of Japan. About 70 million tons per year. This accounts for about 20% of all industrial waste in Japan. Each time an old building disappears due to urban redevelopment or aging infrastructure, its remnants pile up as a new disposal problem. Concrete, asphalt, wood waste, and mixed waste that is difficult to classify. These are sent out daily from construction sites across Japan.

The recycling rate is high. In particular, more than 90% of concrete and asphalt, which have clear routes for reuse, are recycled. However, mixed waste is often sent to treatment plants with inadequate sorting, resulting in landfill disposal or improper disposal. To address this problem, the Construction Recycling Law, which was revised in 2022, came into full effect in 2024. The main pillars of the law are to strengthen the responsibility of prime contractors, mandate prior sorting, and promote the use of electronic manifests.

In urban areas, such as Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture, redevelopment has generated large amounts of construction waste, but there are few places to store it, and transporting it to a disposal site is costly and time-consuming. Residents have also complained about noise and dust, and the government has introduced an information exchange system for construction by-products in an ongoing effort to link the generation and acceptance of these materials.

Meanwhile, in the suburbs of the northern Kanto and Tohoku regions, quiet mountain forests and disused land are being polluted by an influx of waste from the cities. In Nasu Shiobara City, Tochigi Prefecture, an incident involving the illegal burial of more than 10,000 cubic meters of mixed waste was uncovered, sparking outrage among local residents. The burial took place on an inconspicuous hillside. It was a convenient "out-of-sight" location where urban contractors dumped the waste into a mountain forest in order to cut costs.

In Osaka, Aichi, Fukuoka, and other major regional cities, disposal systems are in place to meet the high construction demand, but at the same time, "sham recycling" and false reports of disposal can be found in some cases. In Higashi Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture, a contractor was caught mixing household waste with what he claimed was wood waste. This was a deceptive practice to maintain the appearance of a recycling rate.

In some cold regions such as Hokkaido, demolition is difficult during the snowy season and processing is concentrated in the summer, resulting in temporary piles of waste. In Ishikari City, building materials containing asbestos were left unprotected in the open, and were finally dealt with when neighbors reported the problem. Fibers dancing in the wind were an invisible threat that caused people to be concerned.

One of the most memorable illegal dumping incidents occurred in Sodegaura City, Chiba Prefecture, where 150,000 cubic meters of waste was dumped one after another on the site of a former golf course between 1995 and 2000. Asphalt, furniture, household waste, and demolition materials were mixed together, and there were concerns about groundwater contamination. A series of administrative orders and lawsuits were filed against the residents, and the waste buried in the soil eventually came to be spoken of as a "symbol of pollution.

Another incident occurred between 2006 and 2012 in Kanuma City, Tochigi Prefecture, where construction debris and waste materials were illegally dumped into a mountain forest under the guise of embankment construction. 40,000 tons of waste was buried in the forest, and there were concerns about the impact on farmlands and water sources. As a result, the landowner and the prime contractor were ordered to pay compensation for damages, and were held responsible for "turning a blind eye" in the judicial system.

In 2018, in Koshi City, Kumamoto Prefecture, an incident occurred in which mixed waste was buried on farmland. Demolition companies were bringing in waste one after another, pretending that land leased from local farmers was a material storage site. The farmland would never be able to grow crops again, and the contractor was caught violating the Waste Disposal and Public Cleansing Law.

In response to this situation, municipalities across Japan have been promoting an electronic manifest system in an effort to visualize the disposal flow. In addition, Chiba, Ibaraki, Hyogo, and other cities are using new technologies such as drone surveillance and reporting apps to detect illegal dumping at an early stage. And looking toward the future, "DfD (design for disassembly)," or design for disassembly, is beginning to be introduced at some construction sites. Instead of destroying things, they are to be solved in order to make use of them the next time. This philosophy is shedding new light on the once-forgotten "ethics of disposal.

Related Information
Construction Recycling Law (enacted in 2002/revised in 2022)
Electronic Manifest System (JWNET) Penetration Rate: Approximately 75% by 2024
Kanuma City, Tochigi Prefecture Embankment Ordinance (enacted in 2014)
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Construction byproducts information exchange system (introduced in 2005)
Chiba Prefecture Sodegaura City Ordinance for Monitoring Illegal Dumping of Industrial Waste (enacted in 2002)
Asbestos Waste Disposal Standards (Notification by Ministry of the Environment)
DfD (Design for Disassembly) Architectural Design Case Study: Yokohama City Environmental Future City Project (2023)