The Teshima Island industrial waste case and its process towards resolution

Transcription

1 J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2003) 5:26 30 Springer-Verlag 2003 SPECIAL FEATURE: CONFERENCE REPORT Integrated Management for Hazardous Waste Hiroshi Takatsuki The Teshima Island industrial waste case and its process towards resolution Received: June 10, 2002 / Accepted: June 10, 2002 Abstract The worst case of illegal dumping of industrial waste in Japan occurred on Teshima Island. The disputes concerning the removal and treatment of waste material were completely resolved. An outline of the process of arbitration and the terms of the agreement are given. A technological examination committee was organized to resolve the problem of environmental pollution caused by industrial wastes. An impermeable wall has been constructed on the north coast of the disposal area to prevent polluted water from flowing out to sea. A total of tons of industrial waste will be excavated and moved to Naoshima Island. This material will be melted down and transformed into slag at a new melting furnace in Naoshima, with a capacity of 200 tons per day. The slag will be reused as aggregate in concrete. Comprehensive environmental preservation measures and full environmental monitoring of sewage and emission gas are planned in Teshima and Naoshima. Key words Hazardous wastes Illegal dumping Disputes Introduction At present, throughout Japan, there are more than 200 local disputes concerning industrial waste. The Teshima Island case is the biggest, and concerns the large-scale illegal dumping of hazardous wastes caused typically by the Japanese economic social structure. Therefore, a study of the Teshima Island case is meaningful when considering appropriate disposal systems for industrial wastes in the future. H. Takatsuki (*) Environment Preservation Research Center, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmchi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto , Japan Tel ; Fax highmoon@eprc.kyoto-u.ac.jp Overview of the Teshima Island case Teshima Island is a small island (approximately 16km 2 ) located in the Seto inland sea, and belonging to Kagawa Prefecture (Fig. 1). In 1975, a certain industrial waste disposal company planned to build a hazardous waste disposal plant on the west side of Teshima Island, but the Kagawa prefectural government would not give permission to the company because the Teshima Island residents opposed the plan. Later, in 1978, the company tried again, with a new proposal to treat only nonhazardous wastes for recycling. After several hearings, the Kagawa prefectural government finally gave permission to the company. However, in reality, large quantities of shredder dust and waste oil were brought to the island, and very often they were open-burned without recycling in spite of residents complaints (Fig. 2). In 1990, the Hyogo prefectural police carried out a compulsory investigation of the company, suspecting noncompliance with the Waste Disposal Law. As a result, the company stopped its business, but massive piles of industrial wastes were left on the island. Therefore, 549 residents of the island asked the Environmental Disputes Coordination Commission to require the complete removal of wastes, and compensation for damage against the Kagawa prefectural government, the disposal company, and the discharging companies. Environmental Disputes Coodination 1 The Environmental Disputes Coordination Commission was established by the central government under the Law Concerning the Settlement of Environmental Pollution Disputes. This commission mediates and arbitrates in serious or area-wide environmental disputes to resolve them rapidly and smoothly without depending on a court. The commission first investigated the real situation concerning the pollution on Teshima Island, at considerable expense. Afterwards, the commission actively carried out

2 27 Fig. 1. Location of Teshima Island Fig. 2. A large amount of shredder dust and many drums of waste oil were dumped here. (Photograph was taken in 1990) Fig. 3. A drilling survey to sample wastes and leachate was carried out in 1995 mediation between the applicants and Kagawa prefecture, using the survey data. In 1997, a temporary agreement was established in this mediation. According to the temporary agreement, (1) the Kagawa prefectural government recognized its failure in the management of the disposal company, (2) the Kagawa prefecture pledged to build a waste disposal plant on Teshima Island and dispose of the wastes completely, (3) the Kagawa prefecture will set up a technological examination committee to ensure appropriate treatment of Teshima s industrial wastes. Following the mediated agreement, the technological examination committee carried out many examinations of waste disposal processes, and discussed countermeasures to deal with contaminated groundwater. In the 36th mediation meeting, in 2000, a final arrangement between the Teshima applicants and the Kagawa prefectural government was established, in which it was agreed that the governor should apologize to Teshima s residents for failing to prevent serious damage, and agreeing to complete removal of the wastes. In addition, in the mediation between the residents and the companies that originally produced the wastes, the companies agreed to pay some portion of the cost of countermeasures. A survey of Teshima s industrial waste In this survey, many samples of wastes, soil, and groundwater were taken by drilling and direct excavation at 36 points in the landfill site. In the surrounding sea, seawater, sediment, and shells were also sampled from autumn 1994 to summer 1995 (Fig. 3). The results of this survey are listed below. 1. Wastes disposed of on Teshima Island contained mainly shredder dust, with paper sludge, slag, dehydrating cake, and ash as other components. The amount of waste was

3 28 Fig. 4. Distribution of waste detected in excess of the safety criteria Table 1. Hazardous materials in the waste and soil (under the waste layer) Leaching test (mg/l) Content in the waste (mg/kg) Waste Soil Range Average Range Average Range Average Cadmium Lead Hexavalent chromium ND ND ND ND Arsenic Mercury ND ND ND ND PCB Trichloroethylene Tetrachloroethylene ,3-dichloropropene Benzene Dioxins ngteq/g 3.4 ngteq/g PCB, Polychlorinated biphenyl; ND, not detected found to have reached m 3, i.e., tonnes. (Before the survey, it was estimated to be tonnes.) 2. Among these wastes, many toxic substances were detected. Nine chemicals, i.e., lead, PCB, 1,2- dichloroethane, cis-1,2-dichloroethylene, 1,1,2- trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, 1,3-dichloropropene, and benzene, had leached at levels above the legal standard. Toxic wastes amounted to m 3, i.e., tonnes (Fig. 4). 3. The amount of soil contaminated by lead, benzene, etc., was estimated to be 35000m 3, i.e., tonnes. 4. Groundwater in the alluvium and granite layers was also contaminated at levels above the environmental water criteria. 5. However, leachate testing of soil in the alluvium and granite layers did not detect any other chemicals above the soil standard. 6. Dioxins were detected in wastes, leachate, and groundwater. 7. According to the analytical results, Teshima industrial wastes contain heavy metals (especially lead) and toxic organic materials (especially PCB and benzene) in high concentrations (Tables 1 and 2).

4 29 Table 2. Hazardous materials in the water Leachate in the waste layer (mg/l) Ground water (mg/l) Surface water (mg/l) Range Average Range Average Range Average Cadmium ND ND ND ND Lead Hexavalent chromium ND ND 0.03 Arsenic Mercury ND ND ND ND PCB ND ND Trichloroethylene ND ND ND ND Tetrachloroethylene ND ND 1,3-dichloropropene 0.54 ND ND ND ND Benzene ND ND Dioxins (ng TEQ/l) Seawater, sediment, and shellfish in the surrounding sea had not been seriously affected. 9. The direction of flow of the groundwater was also tested. It was found that the groundwater flows from the landfill site to the north coast of the island. 10. It was assumed that contaminated groundwater was leaching to the sea from the north coast. From this survey, the Environmental Disputes Coordination Commission concluded that some countermeasure should be applied to the landfill site immediately because an environmental risk was clearly present. Technological countermeasures 2 In order to solve the Teshima problems, meetings of the Technological Examination Committee were held very frequently from July 1997 to February Two main themes were discussed. (1) How to prevent leaching of contaminated groundwater, and an excavation plan for the landfill site. (2) The selection of disposal plant and control methods for the exhaust gas. For the former, it was decided that a vertical intercepting wall (18m at its deepest point) should be built on the north coast to prevent the flow of polluted water into the sea, and the leachate should be lifted for disposal by an advanced waste-water treatment system (Fig. 5). For the latter, a surface melting rotary furnace (capacity 200 ton/day) should be built on Naoshima Island, neighboring Teshima Island, and the slag from the furnace should be recycled as concrete aggregate after recovering some metals (Fig. 6). In the specification for this disposal plant, the property of the wastes was as shown in Table 3, and the control standards for the exhaust gas were as shown in Table 4. The quality standards and leaching-test criteria for slag recycling are shown in Tables 5 and 6, respectively. The dioxin content criteria in fly ash was set at less than 1ng-TEQ/g. Fly ash from this plant will be conveyed to the Mitsubishi material s smelting facilities to recover the metals. Teshima wastes Fig. 5. Interception and lifting of leachate Table 3. Properties of Teshima waste Wastes Contaminated soil Units Max. Min. Ave. Moisture % Ash % Combustibles % Low calorific value kcal/kg (wet-base) Table 4. Exhaust-gas control standards Soot Sulfur oxides Hydrogen chloride Nitrogen oxides Dioxins Carbon monoxide (4h average) Standards 0.02 g/m 3 N or less 20p.p.m. or less 40p.p.m. or less 100p.p.m. or less 0.1 ng TEQ/m 3 N or less 30p.p.m. or less

5 30 Fig. 6. Flow diagram of the surface melting rotary furnace Table 5. Slag quality standard Quality standard Particle size Less than 5mm Magnetic material Less than 1% Shapes Not sharp Specific gravity (dry base) More than 2.5 Water absorbing capacity Less than 3% Alkali silica test Inert Table 6. Leaching test criteria Cadmium Lead Hexavalent chromium Arsenic Total mercury Selenium Criteria less than 0.05mg/l Less than mg/l Lessons from the Teshima case The Teshima case was resolved by the Environmental Disputes Coordination commission, but the residents suffered greatly and the disposal cost will reach more than 30 billion yen, even without labor costs. This shows the great importance of prevention and early appropriate control in industrial waste management. On the other hand, the background to this case revealed problems due to a profit-first economic system that avoided spending money for disposal, and a nonpopulous area being forced to accept industrial waste. In order to solve these problems, it is necessary that the producer side (in this case, automobile and domestic appliance makers) takes social responsibility in addition to legal obligations. Acknowledgments This work was carried out by the Environmental Dispute Coordination Commission and the Technological Examination Committee of Kagawa prefecture. The author would like to thank members of both organizations. References will be transported to Naoshima by container ships. At present, all construction concerning the prevention of leaching on Teshima Island has been completed. The melting furnace will start to operate in 2003, but it will take 10 years of operation to fully dispose of the Teshima wastes. 1. Sato K, Hata F (2001) Environmental dispute coordination in the Teshima Island industrial waste case (in Japanese). Jpn Waste Manag Res 12: Kagawa Prefecture s Technological Examination Committee for the Treatment of Teshima s Industrial Wastes (2001) A technological examination for the treatment of Teshima s industrial wastes (in Japanese). Jpn Waste Manag Res 12: