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ILLEGAL DUMPING

Mainichi Daily News

Japan, 13 January 2000 -- Some 2,700 tons of garbage in 122 containers arrived back in Japan on Tuesday, having been "forcefully repatriated" from the Philippines. The waste disposal company based in the city of Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, that illegally exported the garbage has gone bankrupt and its president has gone into hiding. As a result, Japanese taxpayers have been stuck with a bill for several hundreds of millions of yen in disposal costs.

On the surface, this appears to be a case of exploitation of lax customs inspection procedures by an unscrupulous waste-disposal company. However, the incident also sheds light on flaws inherent in the nation's waste-disposal policies.

Since last summer, the Tochigi waste disposal company had been exporting garbage disguised as paper for recycling to a Philippines trading company. The garbage shipments contained discarded hypodermic needles, intravenous tubes, and other hospital waste but managed to slip through customs.

The containers filled with garbage were abandoned at Manila Harbor. The Philippines notified Japan of the illegal garbage shipments in December. To avoid a diplomatic dispute, the Japanese government agreed to assume responsibility for the garbage.

The Tochigi Prefectural Police have launched an investigation of the incident and are trying to substantiate suspicions that the waste disposal company violated the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law. It is important that investigators establish which hospitals originally supplied the hazardous waste. Several waste disposal companies are believed to have served as middlemen.

Even if the police get to the bottom of this case, however, a similar incident could occur again due to flaws in our approach to waste disposal. Corporations, factories, and other kinds of businesses produce about 400 million tons of industrial waste annually, and households generate another 50 million tons of garbage, with no signs that total garbage output is declining. Local governments are required by law to handle the disposal of general household garbage, and corporations are responsible for the industrial waste that they produce.

It would appear, at first glance, that the law holds the party that produces the garbage responsible. However, corporations can commission waste-disposal companies to dispose of their garbage, thereby avoiding legal responsibility for disposal. This huge loophole explains why illegal dumping has become rampant.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is planning to submit a bill amending the Waste Disposal Law to the Diet this year. The amendment would require companies that produce garbage to confirm whether the waste disposal companies hired by them have adhered to proper disposal methods, and companies whose garbage has been illegally dumped would be held responsible for its removal and disposal.

Illegal dumping exposes flaws in our industrial waste policies and the folly of relying on landfill to handle the huge volume of industrial waste that is produced every year.

Japan needs to expedite its makeover into a recycling society. The amendment to the Waste Disposal Law should be seen as a first step in this transformation.

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