Hiromichi Sakamoto

Former;Director,WaterSupplyandEnvironmentalSanitationDepartment, Ministry of Health and Welfare
Present; Inspector, Water Resources Development Public Corporation
(Akasaka 5-3-3, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107 Japan)

Abstract

The 140th Diet session has approved the revised Waste Disposal and Public Cleaning Law. This amendment was carried out to comprehensively cope with a large number of waste problems, especially of an industrial nature. The Law was a radical reform, equal to the revision in 1991. This paper explains the background and the outline of this amendment. The key points of the revision are improvement of the reliability and safety of industrial waste management, and the reinforcement of measures for illegal dumping. In order to promote waste reduction and recycling, the revised law provides two main measures, waste reduction at mass-discharging corporations and the deregulation of recycling. Regarding the raise in reliability and safety of the facilities, the following items were added: investigating the impact on the living environment, as one of procedures to establish facilities and making the results public; and introducing an accumulated fund system for the cost of maintaining the landfill after final disposal, as a measure of proper maintenance and landfill site control. For illegal disposal, the enlargement of the manifest system, punishment reinforcement, and the establishment of a system to remedy the site are expressed as measures. Improved effects from these measures are expects in the future.

Key words: waste treatment law, industrial waste, investigation of impact on living environment, public information, illegal dumping