Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 2.2
History of some major pollution events in Japan
1890: Ashio Copper Mine—Furukawa Co., Ltd
1937: Annaka public pollution lawsuit—Toho Zinc Co., Ltd
1910: “Itai-itai disease”, caused by cadmium poisoning from industrial wastes in Toyama
Prefecture—Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co. (successful lawsuit)
1956: Minamata disease (poisoning caused by industrial mercury pollution). Chisso Co.
(successful lawsuit)
1958: Edogawa Fishing industry damage—Honshu Paper Co., Ltd. (Oji Paper Co., Ltd.) led to
the Water Pollution Prevention Act
1960: Yokkaichi asthma—Caused by many companies: Yokkaichi Petrochemical Com-
plex (successful lawsuit)
1965: Niigata Minamata disease—Showa Denko K.K. (successful lawsuit)
1968: PCB Kanemi rice oil disease incident
1970: First appearance of Tokyo photochemical smog
1970s: dust pollution due to studded tires; 1988: discontinued production and sale
Thalidomide baby lawsuit for drug-induced physical deformations, Smon (subacute myelo-
optic neuropathy) disease medication scandals
The importance of legal action to combat major cases of pollution is shown in
bold
which IPCC pointed out is that the level of warming is determined by the overall
quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that to have a 2/3 chance of limit-
ing warming to 2 ºC, the total emission since industrial revolution need to be limited
to 1000 Gt carbon;
half of this
has already been used and at current rates, the rest
will be emitted in the next 20 or so years. The largest causes of this global warming
are human activity and excess energy consumption. For energy, see the described
outline in 1.3.1. of Chap. 1.
2.2.2
Japan's History
Looking at Japan, the legal framework for dealing with pollution is influenced very
much by our own country's historical experience of gross public pollution. The
country's rapid economic growth during the 1950s and the complete lack of any
environmental controls with the priority firmly on the economy, led to many lo-
cal cases of dead rivers, gross levels of air pollution and also several toxic events
including mercury poisoning at Minamata and Niigata, and food contamination by
PCBs and cadmium. This history of events means that under Section 3, Article 2 in
the Japanese Basic Environment Law, the main examples of environmental pollu-
tion and destruction include atmospheric pollution, water pollution, soil pollution,
noise, vibration, odours and unpleasant smells, and land subsidence. We might also
since add light pollution, obstruction of sunshine by buildings, dioxins, asbestos,
hormone disrupting chemicals, hazardous chemicals, chemical allergies, cedar pol-
lution allergies, and others. Some of the major influences on government legislation
are listed in Table
2.2
.
