ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN-JAPAN: Incinerators’ Foul Fumes Choke Prefectures

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 6 1998 (IPS) - Just a decade ago, Tokorozawa’s lush forests and abundant wild flora beckoned to tens of thousands of cityfolk from nearby crowded Tokyo, who made their homes there.

But today, an exodus seems to be afoot in some of Tokorozawa’s towns as residents seek to escape a host of deadly diseases apparently linked to the presence of hih levels of dioxin in the soil and air around them. The dioxin, in turn, has been traced to the large number of waste incineratos in the area.

Dioxin is released when plastic and other chemically manufactured products such as vinyl are burned. Researchers say 80 percent of the dioxin in Japan is produced by small incinerators that do much of the country’s waste disposal.

There are some 50 of these incinerators in Tokorozawa alone, burning 500 to 1,500 tonnes of waste daily. Most days, residents there wear surgical masks as black, smelly smoke hangs over the area.

“I have decided to sell my house and move out because my daughter developed a polyp. She told me she is afraid to have a baby while living here,” one resident told the press recently.

And in one of the clearest signs of Tokotozawa’s poor environmental health, the area no longer has birds and saplings there are dying, the resident added.

A rise in uterus polyps, severe skin disorders, respiratory asthma and sudden weight los have been reported among people living close to incinerators. Data collected between 1989 and 1994 have also revealed a clear link between high infant mortality rates and the high level of dioxin.

Michio Tanahashi, who compiled the data, says 4.21 and 4.06 deaths per 1,000 newborns have been reported in Irumashi and Miyoshimachi, two towns close to the Tokorozawa interchange that is home to a large clusr of waste-burning plant.

The rates are nearly double the number recorded for the whole of Saitama prefecture, which is 2.47 deaths per 1,000 newborn, to which these districts belong.

Last week, exasperated residents finally filed a lawsuit against the Tokorozawa local government for negligence and for deliberately concealing the dioxin risks from the public. The suit seeks compensation for loss of life and economic hardship that has occurred as result of the pollution.

The Tokorozawa case is only the latest in a string of suits across Japan against plants responsible for releasing dioxin. In January, residents of Shintone filed a case seeking the closure of a waste processing plant a kilometre from their community, citing the area’s 42 percent death rate due to cancer.

Environmentalists say it is about time that the spotlight is turned on the lax waste disposal regulations across the country. It is a pity, they say, that the prevailing concern with burning trash is still more economic than environmental.

“There is no responsibility among the creators of garbage,” says Tanahashi. “The policy followed is the cheaper the better.”

But the costs to the environment — as well as to public health — have been steep. Private researchers say that in 1995, three districts in Tokorozawa had already been found with high contamination rates of dioxin.

Tests revealed that a gramme of soil there could contain 96 to 218 picogrammes of dioxin, or 10 to 15 times the normal level deemed safe by the Environmental Agency.

“Some people have commented that residents here are in a situation even worse than what the Vietnamese underwent when U.S. military forces dumped the dioxin-containing defoliant Agent Orange,” says Toshimichi Yabe, who runs the community bulletin ‘Tokorozawa News’.

In Vietnam, the US chemical bombing was conducted only twice a week, he noted. But at Tokorozawa, the incinerators spew poison 24 hours a day, said Yabe, whose paper has been reporting on the daners of dioxin for eight years.

Tokorozawa officials have denied the accusations hurled atthe by irate residents. But critics say the local governments’ leniency, including the lack of penalties imposed on facilities that fail to follow the already loose regulations, is very much to blame for the mushrooming of incinerators near residential areas.

It may be hard to pinpoint who is legally responsible for the currentmess, though. At present, garbage disposal is contracted out by big companies to the country’s 70,000 small and medium firms, whih do not have the big budgets to follow safe, but expensive, burning technology.

Small contractors say they would need an investment of at least 300 million yen (2.2 million dollars) to equip their incinerators with dioxin-controlling filters.

This policy of looking for quick and cheap methods of disposal has also encouraged increasing levels of illegal waste dumping in the country. In 1995, illegal dumping amounted to as muh as 44,000 tonnes nationwide, the health and welfare ministry says.

Under public pressure, the Environment Agency in March promised to have stricter regulations on the release of toxic soot from incinerators by the year 2000.

But Yabe says this target is too long a wait. “Residents of Tokorozawa need immediate attention,” he says. “Incinerators must be closed down and the government should stop the widespread use of plastic material in everyday life, if we are to be proteced and the environment to be saved.”