An Eye for the Darkness: The Blacklist Illusion of the Industrial Waste Industry, circa 2000

An Eye for the Darkness: The Blacklist Illusion of the Industrial Waste Industry, circa 2000
Around the year 2000, there was a wide gulf between the front stage of institutional reform and the frontline of serious structural problems in Japan's industrial waste disposal industry. The Basic Law for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society and the Home Appliance and Construction Recycling Law were enforced, and ISO 14001 certification was regarded as proof of a company's social credibility, but the shortage of final disposal sites and the limited capacity of intermediate treatment facilities were not resolved, and waste that had lost its recipients became a hotbed of illegal dumping and improper disposal. In many cases, even licensed companies were linked behind the scenes with outlaw companies, and waste that was supposed to be delivered to the final disposal site disappeared the next morning. A corporate environmental officer remarked, "I want a blacklist of bad contractors so badly I can't get my hands around it," but the line between good and bad contractors was
blurred in the industry, and even long-established contractors were at risk of having their names found at illegal dumping sites. At the time, the e-manifest system and the waste traceability concept were still in the process of spreading, paper manifests were rife with empty conveyances and fake documents, and RFID tags and GPS vehicle tracking technology were only in the experimental stage. The combination of institutional fatigue and lack of technology led to a pervasive sense of helplessness on the ground that there was no way to guarantee safe disposal. This blacklist illusion is a symbolic cry born of information asymmetry, distrust, and institutional and technological immaturity.