Garden of Invisible Poison - Domestic Soil Contamination in Nishinasuno Town, Tochigi, Japan (2003)

Garden of Invisible Poison - Domestic Soil Contamination in Nishinasuno Town, Tochigi, Japan (2003)

In the early 2000s, soil safety was beginning to become a new social issue in Japan as more and more urban and suburban residential areas were being developed. In 2003, domiKankyo, a subsidiary of Penta-Ocean Corporation, conducted a household soil survey in the town of Nishinasuno, Tochigi Prefecture, which brought these concerns to light. The survey, conducted mainly on vegetable gardens and residential land in the Tokyo metropolitan area, confirmed heavy metal contamination, mainly lead and chromium. In particular, 10% of all samples showed dangerous concentrations of lead and 14% of samples showed dangerous concentrations of chromium, ranging from "high" to "extremely high.

The Soil Contamination Countermeasures Law, which had just gone into effect in February 2003, was mainly intended for specified facilities, and private homes were outside the scope of the law. The law was not applicable to private residences. In other words, there was a risk that the gardens and fields where ordinary citizens lived would be left "outside the scope" of the system.

Against this backdrop, an increasing number of individuals and municipalities began to conduct voluntary soil testing, and there was growing concern that soil safety was being left to "individual responsibility. Especially for households with vegetable gardens and families with children, the possibility of unknowingly introducing toxic substances into the soil has become a reality. This case brought to society's attention the environmental risks that lurk beneath our feet and the institutional vacuum that exists.