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The Yomiuri Shimbun

Police will soon launch a full-scale investigation into the garbage shipment that is believed to be a violatation of the Basel Convention on the shipment of hazardous waste.

It is the first time that the government has recovered such waste since the international convention came into effect eight years ago. The government will likely pay the 60 million yen transportation cost and other costs, such as incineration expenses, which will total more than 100 million yen, for Nisso Ltd., an industrial waste disposal company located in Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, as the company president is reportedly missing.

The MV Pulsar that transported the waste docked at about 720 a.m., and officials from the International Trade and Industry Ministry and the Environment Agency were present at the unloading. Investigators from the Tochigi and Nagano prefectural police confirmed the arrival of the containers. The containers weighed about 2,700 tons in total.

Ayako Sekine, 31, a member of Greenpeace Japan, who was watching the containers being unloaded at the pier said she was ashamed about the garbage shipment to the Philippines because it caused "profound distrust toward Japan in the international community."

"The government should strengthen its supervision to prevent such an incident from being repeated," she said. "Our organization will continue to monitor the disposal of the waste."

The Health and Welfare Ministry, the Environment Agency and MITI issued orders to Nisso, at about 11 a.m., to correctly dispose of the garbage.

Tuesday was the deadline for the government to recover the garbage under the Basel Convention. The government received an official report from the Philippine government about the illegal shipment in December.

The government sent inspectors to the Philippines to investigate the claim, and they confirmed that the garbage contained infectious hospital waste such as used hypodermic needles and containers of intravenous drips. The government then ordered Nisso to recover the garbage while accusing it of violating the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law on Dec. 24.

An Environment Agency official said, "We had to act promptly as a Philippine newspaper wrote that the shipment was 'Japan's third invasion following the war and economic invasion.' Otherwise, it would have become a serious diplomatic issue."

Mitsuo Ohashi, chairman of secretariat of the Japan Network on the Waste Landfill, said, "Developing countries tend to be targeted as a destination for garbage in the name of recycling because their environmental regulations are less strict and labor costs are cheaper than those in Japan. We should see the latest incident as the tip of the iceberg."

Police find illegal dumping

The joint investigation headquarters of the Tochigi and Nagano prefectural police will in a few days start inspecting the recovered garbage on suspicion that its export violated the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law.

The headquarters also plans to request a warrant of arrest against Hiromi Ito, 49, the president of the industrial waste disposal company, after searching the company's office and storage facilities.

According to the joint investigation team, Ito bought a building materials company in Oyama in late 1997, and converted it into the company's main office. As the regulations on dioxin emissions were tightened, the Tochigi prefectural government instructed the company to upgrade an incineration facility in late 1998. However, before making the necessary improvements to the facility, Nisso applied to the prefectural government to cease operations at the facility in October 1999.