First Person] "The Era of Making Money from Garbage: My View of the Backside of Medical Waste" - 1994

First Person] "The Era of Making Money from Garbage: My View of the Backside of Medical Waste" - 1994
Back then, medical waste was truly "money-making garbage. The bubble economy had burst, and the future of our main business was in doubt. Needles and gauze with blood on them were given special treatment by law, and the disposal cost, which had previously been about 50 yen per kilogram, suddenly jumped to 1,000 yen.

I thought, "This is going to be delicious. All you needed was an incinerator and a truck to get started. We started our own disposal business, just following the example of others. But if we had followed the law, it would have been impossible to make a profit. Burning the waste at high temperatures, changing filters, etc., cost too much money.

Sooner or later, I looked around, and I saw a lot of contractors offering services for as little as 50 yen. How could they do it for that kind of price?　Simply put, they don't process it properly. They dumped it deep in the mountains or burned it in old-fashioned, crude incinerators. The manifest system was still inadequate, and tracking was almost impossible. As long as the books were in order, no one complained.

One day, a farmer in my neighborhood spilled the beans, saying, "The vegetables in my field have been acting strangely lately," which was indeed heartbreaking. But when I told the government, they just replied, "We'll investigate. The responsibility was fluffy, and no one really wanted to make a move.

Looking back, what we were doing back then was completely an environmental crime. But the atmosphere at the time was not like that. It was called "new business," and everyone was flocking to the smell of money. The law created a market, but the management couldn't keep up with it, and the scene was in shambles. I was part of that time. Now, I think I finally understand the gravity of the situation.