/ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN 7/ JAPAN: Residents of Tokyo Suburb Protest Waste Plant

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 2 1996 (IPS) - Residents of a Tokyo suburb are taking the local government to court to try to prevent construction of a waste disposal plant in a move they hope will force authorities to pay more than lip service to protecting the environment.

“The utter disregard shown by officials to protecting the environment and health of the public, cannot be tolerated any longer,” said Seisaku Shimada, head of the Hinode no Mori, a grassroots organisation named after the suburb and comprising hundreds of local residents.

Shimada blames an already operating waste plant, which is nearby to where the proposed new plant would be constructed, of contaminating the town’s water supply with dangerous chemicals such as dioxin and mercury.

The dump site, which opened in 1994, is a vast pit lined with a sheet of thin rubber to prevent polluted waste water from seeping into the earth.

Residents say while victims have yet to be reported, they have evidence that contaminated water from the plant has been leaking into the water supply system.

Lawyers filed a suit last May asking the local government to release water content data to the residents. The official consortium contested the charge insisting that no such data was collected.

However, a Tokyo court ruled in favour of the petitioners and ordered the consortium and the local government to pay penalty charges as high as 300,000 yen (3,000 dollars) a day starting last July, to the residents.

Only recently, the consortium disclosed some data on the water content.

“The very fact that the officials agreed to pay such a hefty amount rather than accept the public access to information, is an indication of their deep desire to hide facts,” said Shimada, who adds that the data disclosed was not sufficient.

Shimada says the citizen’s group has received more than 30 million yen (300,000 dollars) from the local government and waste plant operators. Under the ruling another 50 million yen (500,000 dollars) must be paid.

Lawyer Shoji Kajima, appearing for the plaintiffs, explained that the citizen’s group is challenging the long-held belief that Japanese officials do not have to share information with the public because they know what is best for the society.

“The minds of the Japanese are controlled by this kind of policy which has allowed government officials to make all kinds of decisions that do not reflect what the people really want,” he explained.

The Environment Agency says Japanese laws do not specifically uphold the right of information to citizens.

“Current regulations support individual rights but do not order companies or the government to disclose facts as a matter of course,” said an official.

The case also illustrates the fact that Japan has not yet found a safe method for disposing the vast tons of garbage people discard everyday.

The new plant to be built in Hinode, a town of 1,600 people, is to incinerate trash collected from an area around Tokyo which has a population of 3.6 million.

Last year a white paper released by the government warned the future of the capital is endangered by the problem of garbage disposal.

The Japanese media blame this on the alleged failure of politicians and bureaucrats to pay sufficient attention to the nagging problem.

Officials are desperate for new dumping sites. The Tokyo Metropolitan government, which has to discard 2.5 million tons of garbage every year, is fast running out of dumping sites.

Traditionally, waste from incinerators have been dumped in the sea around Tokyo Bay that surrounds most of Tokyo. A new landfill site has just been constructed at the cost of more than a billion yen (10 million dollars).

Experts and non-government organisations say the garbage problem is the result of Japan’s economic development which has encouraged wasteful lifestyles and has also allowed Japanese companies to focus on production while ignoring accompanying environmental problems.

Paper waste tops the list of garbage. More than 65,000 tons of household appliances such as refrigerators and other electrical items are also discarded each year.

Citizens’ groups are calling for environment-friendly packaging, a green tax to be slapped on both the consumer and business and regulations that hold manufacturers of plastic and other hazardous chemicals responsible for their waste.

“With stiff resistance from the business sector however, such moves are going to take long to incorporate. But the situation is really desperate,” said Shimada.