Challenging the "Invisible Garbage War"--Gifu Prefecture's Illegal Dumping Monitoring Patrol (1997)

Challenging the "Invisible Garbage War"--Gifu Prefecture's Illegal Dumping Monitoring Patrol (1997)

In the 1990s, Japan faced a "waste problem," a side effect of its rapid economic growth. As the economy matured and industries diversified, not only household waste but also "invisible waste" such as industrial waste and construction waste increased rapidly. Illegal activities such as illegal dumping and burning in the open became commonplace, especially in rural areas in the mountains, forests, and farmlands, and were having a serious impact on the rural environment and the lives of residents.

Gifu Prefecture was no exception, and there were numerous reports of contractors bringing in industrial waste without permission and dumping it in the mountains late at night in rural areas of the prefecture. Amidst increasing reports from residents and criticism of administrative inaction, the prefectural government took what could be called an unorthodox measure. The prefectural government has taken an unprecedented measure: the introduction of regular air and land patrols using disaster-prevention helicopters and police cars.

This measure has realized a three-dimensional surveillance system: once a week, the prefecture monitors the mountainous area from the sky to check for suspicious vehicles and dumping sites, while police cars monitor the site on the ground. This was the most advanced waste monitoring by a local government in Japan at the time, and attracted attention as a "preventive environmental administration" that focused on "deterring" illegal dumping.

Furthermore, this initiative was based on cooperation with local residents, and a system was established to share information with agricultural cooperatives and neighborhood associations. The prefectural government did not simply aim to uncover illegal activities, but to prevent them from occurring by creating a situation where "everyone is watching.

In 1997, Japan as a whole was in the process of revising its Waste Disposal and Public Cleaning Law and considering a recycling law, but concrete measures at the local level were still in the minority. Gifu Prefecture's case is said to have influenced later institutional designs such as the "Illegal Dumping Monitoring Guidelines" and the "Wide-Area Waste Monitoring Network," and has significance as a model for environmental crime countermeasures initiated at the local level.

This initiative has given many suggestions to the current waste administration as a good example of the linkage between administrative responsibility and local power, making visible "invisible crimes" that had tended to be overlooked behind the backdrop of economic rationality.