Saturday, 21sept02 at Kaiko-Kinen Kaikan, Yokohama, Japan
Two lectures by leading activists.
"Illegality of new waste policy," and "Recycling society is a disguise of mass production and mass disposal."
We planned this symposium since the governor of Kanagawa prefecture announced the privatization of municipal waste management in Nikkei-shinbun (The Japanese Economic Newspaper) in February. Until that time they never told this scenario ...it has been conducted in a secret room. No doubt the most important is to give accurate information to people about the situation, especially its danger. You can find many examples and hints for your group's activities.
In Japan there are about three thousands of municipal waste incinerators and unknown numbers of industrial incinerators ( some say they are more than six thousands!), and they are emitting tons of deadly polluting gases into the air every day.
This burn-everything policy has been taken by Japanese government supported by private sector. It is profitable for corporations because they can save waste management cost. But thirty years of incineration policy resulted serious environmental contamination and public health damage... people living near to the incinerators or other waste management facilities are suffering from asthma and various physical disorders.
Since 1997, government changed its policy from "recycle more" to "incinerate to energy", it means to construct bigger and more complicated gasification incinerators or ash melting furnaces plus waste electric plants. And what is even worse, the waste management is now under way for privatization in national level.
As they publicize this policy is useful for dioxin reduction, even established institutions or political parties welcome this trend. But the effectiveness of those adapted techniques have not been proved yet.
Setsuko Yamamoto, Freelance Writer
watcherkam@par.odn.ne.jp
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