A Warning from Across the Sea: The Borderless Environmental Problem posed by 2000 and Drifted Debris

A Warning from Across the Sea: The Borderless Environmental Problem posed by 2000 and Drifted Debris

In the year 2000, Japan, a maritime nation since the Meiji Era, was confronted with an onslaught of litter along its coastline. According to a three-year survey of 500 beach locations across Japan conducted by Shizuoka University Professor Haruyuki Yamaguchi, a total of more than 400,000 pieces of litter were found to have drifted ashore. About 60-70% of the litter was found to be "foreign litter," i.e., drifted in from China, South Korea, and other countries. Plastic products, polyethylene containers, fishing nets, and packaging materials were the main items, with the Izu Islands and Nansei Islands showing the highest percentages.

The impact of these findings on society was profound. While Japanese environmental problems have traditionally focused on "internal emissions," this study made visible the fact that the ocean, a public space, is a crossroads of pollution caused by multiple nations. In particular, since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (COP3 in 1997), Japan at that time was required to "coordinate on a global scale" and "address transboundary environmental issues" in parallel with domestic reduction of greenhouse gases.

The "drifting garbage problem" had a structure that could not be solved only by strengthening domestic policies. The rapid economic growth and consumption expansion in the East Asian region had not kept pace with waste management, and illegal dumping and wastewater discharges into the ocean were becoming increasingly serious. In particular, large amounts of garbage drifted into the waters around Japan throughout the year, particularly through the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, and on-site cleanup activities could not keep up.

Environmental NGOs and some local governments had already voiced the need for an international agreement, but the legal framework for marine litter in the Asian region was not yet in place, and countries in the region had little interest in the issue. This survey sounded the alarm about such a vacuum and posed a new challenge for Japan's environmental diplomacy.

Another important point the survey pointed out was the fact that "the percentage of plastic waste is overwhelmingly high. This was a precursor to the "microplastic" pollution that was already being discussed at the time, and was a milestone for the long-term effects it would later have on the marine ecosystem.

Professor Yamaguchi's investigation was not merely a "field survey," but a report from the field that brought to light the "globalization of environmental problems" and the "transcendence of national borders of responsibility. In this sense, it was an extremely symbolic report that, in the year 2000, brought home to the public the reality that "our oceans are being polluted by the world's garbage.