Since the smog-darkened days of 20 years ago, and after being goaded into action by an angry electorate, the Japanese Government passed strict pollution-control laws. Although Japanese corporations initially opposed the controls, most soon realized they could save money by conserving energy — and some also saw they could make money by developing sophisticated anti-pollution equipment for export as well as domestic use.

Japan now faces a second environmental crisis. The difference this time is that the principal culprits are not companies but affluent consumers. But once again, Japanese industry scents profits in pollution. The latest crisis stems in part from the rapid growth in personal wealth. Japanese shoppers are buying more, and they expect their purchases to be double —and sometimes even triple — wrapped. Little of this packaging is recycled, and as a consequence the amount of waste generated by households has soared.

The result is that landfills in most Japanese cities will be full within the next two or three years. Lack of space and the "not-in-my-back-yard" syndrome means that few new sites are available. This in turn will put more pressure on the country’s already overloaded incinerators, which currently dispose of between two thirds and three quarters of the nation’s solid, and therefore often potentially recyclable, waste.

A measure of the seriousness of the problem is a budget request by Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry for ~9 billion (US$652 million) in the 1992 financial year to be spent on measures to reduce waste and promote recycling. This is more than 16 times higher than the ministry’s waste-related spending this year.

Japan has some of the strictest emission controls in the world. During the decade from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s these effectively made the air in Japanese cities again fit to breathe. However, air pollution is now once again declining as carbon dioxide levels creep up, largely as a result of increased household energy consumption — primarily because of the widespread use of air-conditioners.

More noticeable to the person in the street is the increase in the level of nitrogen oxide, the toxic brown gas that belches from the exhausts of diesel-powered buses and trucks. Diesel is cheaper than petrol and the regulations governing emissions from diesel engines are not so strict. Here too, the Japanese consumer is largely to blame. Huge increases in the number of deliveries made to convenience stores and homes in recent years have launched an armada of small trucks onto Japan’s already clogged roads.

The seriousness of pollution problems has once more galvanized the Japanese Government into action. To deal with nitrogen oxide pollution, for example, the Environment Agency recently issued guidelines that call for reductions in emissions of 17% by 1994 and by 38% by the end of the decade. For their part, vehicle makers have begun fitting exhaust gas recycling devices to most medium and large trucks.

In addition to the Environment Agency, several other ministries have responsibility for pollution control. Of these, by far the most active is the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti). The ministry took the lead in addressing environmental issues in the wake of Japan’s first, industry-generated crisis. Today, Miti is pouring around ~70 billion a year into research and development of, among other things, chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) substitutes, biodegradable plastics, technology aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions and ways of absorbing and utilizing the so-called greenhouse gases.

The centre-piece of Miti’s strategy for the development of environment-friendly technologies is a new facility now under construction near Kyoto called the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for Earth (RITE). The new facility, which has been described as the best-funded national project in Japanese history, is planned to open with a staff of 200-plus researchers sometime next year.

Much of RITE’S funding of around 50 billion Yen comes from industry, and the subscription list contains representatives from across the entire spectrum of corporate Japan — including car firms, electronics companies, steel makers, heavy equipment producers, power utilities, banks, trading companies and even insurance firms.

Source : Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 Sept, 1991

Back to Archive Page

Recycling Point Dot Com

(C) 2000 All Rights Reserved