Reduce / Reuse / Recycle

August 6, 2004

 

10 Million Tons of Illegally Dumped Industrial Waste in Japan

Keywords: Government Local government Reduce / Reuse / Recycle 

Japan's Ministry of the Environment has released results of a survey of prefectures as well as cities with public health departments concerning the amount of illegally dumped industrial waste across the country as of April 1, 2003. The following is a summary of the survey results:

There were 2,505 cases of illegally-dumped industrial waste, for which the weight was known in 2,285 cases, totaling 10,960,000 tons.

Less than 1% of the cases exceeded 100,000 tons, although their weight accounted for 44% of the total.

Of all cases, 67% involved construction-related scrap, and these cases accounted for 56% of all illegally dumped industrial waste in weight.

Of all cases, 22% were discovered in 2002, and 21% in 2001. In terms of weight, illegal dumping in 1999 and 2000 were each responsible for 18% of the waste currently across Japan, while 13% of the overall weight can be traced back to 1997.

Waste-emitting businesses, unknown parties, and businesses unauthorized to dump waste were responsible for 34%, 26%, and 23% of cases, respectively. In terms of weight, authorized, unauthorized, and emitting businesses were responsible for 37%, 31%, and 13%, respectively.

Of all cases, 21% are deemed to pose or potentially become environmental health problems. Such cases accounted for 53% of overall weight. Clean-up orders have been issued for 32% of the cases, with authorities working on or planning to handle clean up for 22% of the cases (responsible parties, if identified, will be later billed for the associated clean-up costs).




Posted: 2004/08/06 11:08:09 AM
Japanese version

 

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