TOUR LOGBOOK

5 June 2000 - Greenpeace Hails Cleanup of Teshima Island as Victory for Environmental Justice

Greenpeace today hailed the success of the people of the island of Teshima in forcing the Japanese government to remove toxic waste illegally dumped on the island, but stressed that the lessons from this episode will all go to naught unless Japan abandons its disastrous waste management practices and invests in ecological waste management and clean production.

“The cleanup of Teshima island is an important success for citizens movements in Japan and represents a landmark victory for environmental justice worldwide. We hope that the Japanese government will take the lessons of Teshima to heart - that cleanup is always more costly than prevention, and that people will no longer tolerate being made the sacrificial victims of Japan’s toxic crisis,” said Ayako Sekine, toxics campaigner of Greenpeace Japan.

“While we welcome this decision to clean-up Teshima, it is nonetheless difficult to forgive the government for sanctioning the illegal dumping of toxic waste in this island for 25 years at the expense of people’s health and the environment. Until today, the government has consistently evaded the issue of taking responsibility for this disaster,” added Sekine.

The decision to rehabilitate Teshima represents a first in the world as there has never been such a large scale project amounting to $300 million dollars to clean up 500,000 tons of toxic waste from an illegal dump site. But behind the scenes of the illegal toxic waste dumping at Teshima is the story of continuing use and discharge by Japanese industries of difficult to treat toxic substances, an industrialized society’s over consumption and reliance on backend waste management solutions such as incinerators and landfills, and a government stance which favors industrial profits over the health of people and the environment.

“The Teshima issue is a well-known international symbol of Japan’s reputation as one of the most toxic nations on the planet. The experience of Teshima proves that the current Japanese waste management and disposal system is a failure. Japan should clean up its act at home first before it even thinks of exporting this model to other countries in Asia,” said Von Hernandez, toxics campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, adding that “these mistakes should not be repeated in Japan nor anywhere in the world.”

The Japanese government through its international aid and financing agencies like the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and the OECF, has been aggressively promoting Japanese incinerators in other Asian countries such as Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. A recent JICA study on waste management for Metro Manila also included an option to dump garbage from the metropolis to one island off Manila Bay.

“It should now be clear to the Japanese authorities that the shift towards clean production is imperative. Japanese industries should learn to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals at source and find suitable but ecologically friendly alternatives to these substances in the production process. Moreover, greater resources should be placed on waste minimization and recycling instead of relying on expensive incinerators which do not really solve the problem,” added Hernandez.

Greenpeace salutes the islanders of Teshima for winning a long hard battle that finally forced the polluting industries and government to own up and take full responsibility for their actions. In 1996, the environmental group sent experts on board its ship the MV Greenpeace to Teshima to examine the extent of contamination at the site. This year, the SV Rainbow Warrior also visited the island as part of Greenpeace’s recently concluded tour of Asia against pollution. The group vows to continue monitoring the process of cleaning-up and restoring Teshima.

14 April 2000 - Greenpeace highlights threat from waste dumps on Teshima Island

Previous updates from the Tour Logbook

Back to Top