Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture--The Ishihara Sangyo Incident as Another "Negative Legacy"--April 1995

Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture--The Ishihara Sangyo Incident as Another "Negative Legacy"--April 1995

In 1995, Japan was going through a period of rapid economic growth, and social interest in pollution issues was finally growing. Yokkaichi City, in particular, was nationally known as a pollution city due to the "Yokkaichi Asthma" that occurred in the 1960s. In the 1970s, environmental standards were tightened and restrictions were placed on businesses.

However, despite this historical memory, it was revealed in the 1990s that Ishihara Sangyo had illegally buried ferrosilt, a byproduct of titanium production, for many years without properly disposing of it. Hexavalent chromium and heavy metals were detected in this waste, and soil and groundwater contamination in the surrounding area became a problem. There were also concerns about health hazards to residents, and "corporate responsibility" and "inadequate administrative monitoring systems" were once again called into question.

At the time, the economy was in a period of turmoil following the collapse of the bubble economy, and public distrust of the cozy relationship between government and business and inadequate monitoring was growing. With the enactment of the Basic Environment Law in 1993, interest in "sustainable society" was growing nationwide, and this incident had symbolic significance as a "negative legacy. Although the local citizens' group intensified its monitoring activities and the media coverage led Ishihara Sangyo to begin soil remediation and removal work, trust in the company was never restored, and the incident will long be remembered as "the second Yokkaichi pollution.

This incident was a true demonstration of how lessons from the past had not been learned, and it was also a turning point in the shift in Japanese society in the 1990s from an emphasis on the economy to an emphasis on the environment.