Additional Industrial Waste Found on Kagawa Island

June 11, 2018

Tonosho, Kagawa Pref.- Additional industrial waste was discovered this year on an island in Kagawa Prefecture, western Japan, where the disposal of one of the largest amounts of illegally dumped industrial waste in the nation was believed to have been completed last year.

A total of 610 tons of waste was newly found in the town of Tonosho on the island of Teshima.

The prefecture, which aims to dispose of the waste through incineration and melting as before, is looking for a disposal facility since the one used last time in the nearby town of Naoshima is being scrapped.

The illegal dumping of industrial waste is believed to have started on a large scale around the 1970s. In 1991, Hyogo prefectural police arrested those related to the company that illegally dumped the waste on Teshima.

Under a settlement with local residents, the prefectural government of Kagawa started the transfer of the waste in 2003.

Initially estimating the waste amount at about 500,000 tons, the prefectural government aimed to finish transferring the waste to the disposal facility by the end of fiscal 2012, but the actual amount turned out to total some 912,000 tons, significantly higher than the estimate.

As a result, it was not until March 28, 2017, right before the deadline decided under the settlement, that Kagawa Governor Keizo Hamada declared the completion of the waste transfer.

In January, however, prefectural government personnel discovered sewage sludge amounting to some 85 tons under the ground during cleanup work for contaminated groundwater at the dumping site. The governor ordered a thorough survey after additional sludge of around 30 tons was discovered in February.

In about a month of survey since April, an additional total of 495 tons of sludge and scrap metal were discovered at sites that were not dug deep in the previous transfer operation. All of the waste was buried deep and covered in earth.

"We didn't dig deeper since we failed to consider the possibility of waste having been covered by earth," a prefectural government official said.

According to the governor, an attorney for the prefecture downplayed possible illegality linked to the newly found waste because local residents and experts attended an on-site inspection when the waste transfer was completed last year.

The residents have not so far expressed any intention to file a protest. Jiji Press