Roger Ong“Today, there are only two people who can fully describe the Teshima Incident by word of mouth,” Touru Ishii shared when we were discussing how most people in Kagawa Prefecture do not know about Teshima’s history. He was our guide in Teshima to visit ground zero of the infamous Teshima Incident. Teshima is a quiet island, a 15-minute ferry ride from Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture. It is known among art lovers as one of the “art islands” that hosts the Setouchi Triennale, showcasing art exhibits you can walk into and experience.
Who would have thought that a mere fifty years ago, Teshima was considered Japan’s “Garbage Island.” Indeed, many are forgetting. On the west side of the island, 29 hectares of land used to be the dumping ground of illegal industrial waste for close to two decades. The exposure of the crimes on Teshima, thus coined the Teshima Incident, opened the eyes of the nation and started arguably the first national discourse for waste management. The Teshima Incident shook the nation and greatly influenced the revision of Japan’s Waste Management Law and inspired the Basic Law for Establishing the Recycling-based Society.
Zenbird’s visit was initially to understand the Teshima Incident and the progress of the cleanup. Ishii revealed to us that it is not just a story of injustice, but also a story of a small group of civilians fighting for the environment against great odds.
Teshima Incident: From an island of plenty to Garbage Island
Teshima Incident is Japan’s worst case of illegal dumping of toxic industrial waste. While some will point to the Hyogo Prefectural Police inspection in 1990 as the beginning of the problem, the true problem began in 1975, 15 years before the problem was discovered. This was when Teshima Comprehensive Tourism Development, or Teshima Tourism for short, began importing hazardous industrial waste into Teshima.
What does tourism have to do with anything in environmental and industrial waste disposal? Absolutely nothing. The name was picked to convey the mission of revitalizing Teshima. But it developed into a lie, as the company became the guise of monetary profit under the culprit Sousuke Matsuura.
Greed has a face: Teshima Tourism’s Sousuke Matsuura
While Teshima Tourism’s president was his wife, Kiyoko, the operations were overseen by Sousuke Matsuura himself. Matsuura would become the bane of society and environment, as he would end up incurring tens of billions in damages, contaminating nature, and giving Teshima the name “Garbage Island.”
Teshima residents knew him to be a cunning character that exploited loopholes, and was violent and unscrupulous. Matsuura even confessed that he was willing to do anything for profit. Not only that, Teshima Tourism has been conducting deforestation and contaminating the surrounding waters of Teshima. Teshima residents knew best that he should not be allowed to make decisions on environmental issues. Unfortunately, they would soon have to be dragged out of their peaceful lives to fight for Teshima’s future.
Not garbage – the “valued waste theory”
In 1975, Teshima Tourism submitted a request to import toxic industrial waste into Teshima. This, of course, sparked controversy among Teshima residents, which led to a demonstration two years later. Nevertheless, the then-governor Tadao Maekawa approved it without the residents’ approval, allowing the import of paper sludge, food sludge, wood chips, and livestock fecal matter.
But Matsuura took in toxic waste that was disallowed in the agreement. These included slag from copper refining, waste oil, waste acid, waste organic solvents and more. The worst was shredder residue from crushed motor vehicles. These materials often contained heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium, which became a toxic threat. It began poisoning the land and the surrounding sea.
Yet, no action was taken on Matsuura. He exploited the definition of “waste,” by claiming that these were simply unprocessed resources and therefore should not be considered waste. This was later known as “valued waste theory,” which a weak Kagawa government was unable to defy.
Police investigations exposed the crimes nationwide, but the fight continues
Finally, in 1990, Hyogo Prefectural Police’s local investigations in Hyogo led to Kawgawa Prefecture’s Teshima island. They followed with a big-scale search of the grounds of Teshima Tourism. The scale of it piqued the curiosity of the mass media, who started to look deeper into the Teshima and Teshima Tourism themselves. The truth was finally out. Consequently, Teshima Tourism lost its license to operate, and Matsuura was arrested.
“If Hyogo Police didn’t get involved, who knows how long the pollution would have continued.” That is a chilling thought.
One chapter of Teshima closes, another chapter opens, as arbitration began with two matters. One would be the removal of waste on the grounds, to which costs were borne by the government and, ultimately, taxpayers. The other was returning land to Teshima residents’ ownership, which was particularly important to the residents to prevent the recurrence of hazardous, illegal waste dumping. Within the next ten years, by the activism of the Teshima residents, arbitration finally drew to a conclusion in June 2000, allowing the work to clean up the island to begin.
The economical and environmental damage to Teshima
The damage done to Teshima was not overnight, but an accumulation of decades of environmental abuse and toxic waste.
The local industries took the first hit. There were already signs of pollution from factory discharges and pesticides. Local sand was taken as a resource while land reclamation was conducted. Deforestation also took place, and the use of concrete damaged the forests’ and rivers’ ability to contribute to the surrounding sea, Seto Inland Sea. Local economies like fisheries and the environment were destroyed. Then the import of toxic industrial waste by Teshima Tourism, accelerated the degradation of Teshima’s sea, land and air.
It is reported that the last load of industrial waste left Teshima three years ago. The amount of waste removed totaled about 912,616 tons (after discovering and removing unaccounted remainders.) However, the leachate remains on the dumping grounds and in the soil, and the work to clean it continues. Funding for the cleanup is ending soon, and there is a rush to complete it before it does.
The cleanup costs have increased to more than JPY 80 billion (by March 2021) from the originally estimated JPY 49 billion, which the Japanese government and Kagawa Prefecture bear down the middle.
“We seem to misunderstand that we own the land and have rights to use it. It was entrusted to us to protect. But the assumption that it was okay to destroy nature for profit prevailed instead.”
And now, that mindset has us paying out of the pockets of Teshima, Kagawa Prefecture, and the Japanese nation.
“The hearts of the residents are grey” – when the government fails
In 1977, 1425 signatories protesting against Teshima Torusim’s request to import toxic industrial waste were submitted to the governor’s office. After getting permission from Teshima Tourism, the governor made an official visit to Teshima to visit the grounds. What he said after the visit sparked a large-scale demonstration.
The then-governor Tadao Maekawa, after visiting the dumping grounds in Teshima, declared:
“Teshima Tourism is being bothered by the residents. We have studied the state of the matter and have found no problems. The residents who dissent against [Teshima Tourism] despite this are just egoists and bullies. The sea is blue, the sky is clean, but the hearts of the residents are grey.”
Of course, it aggravated the residents’ anger and sparked them to carry out demonstrations. The demonstration in 1977 was the first time any Teshima residents ever had to participate in a protest. Back then, being activists and holding rallies conjured images of violence, so it took a firm resolve for the peaceful residents to participate in demonstrations.
Where does a governor find the galls for insult? For the ex-governor Maekawa, it was under the fear of Matsuura. Matsuura was known to be physically violent towards governmental staff, cajoling them to act in his interest. Matsuura also played the victim, which Maekawa utilized to mark Teshima residents as bullies. It remains mind-boggling how one person was allowed so much influence on an organization whose role was for the public good.
With the role Kagawa’s government had in the incident, the sound decision would be to admit wrong decisions and actions were taken, then move to find solutions and put in place a system to prevent similar incidents from happening again. However, that was not the case, even after Teshima Tourism lost its license and arbitration began.
“The local government did not accept responsibility. Instead, government representatives at the meeting would say ‘accepting responsibility’ is too serious a phrase. Instead, they worded the circumstance as ‘expected risk.'”
Resolute, no pushovers: the will of Teshima Residents
Kagawa government’s refusal to accept responsibility created a narrative to downplay the Teshima Incident in Kagawa residents. However, the citizens of Teshima were not so easily deterred. They were determined to create awareness among Kagawa citizens and launched a campaign. First, they collected signatures continuously for six months in 1997 in the neighboring island Shodojima to collect signatures and create awareness. They finally got the attention of the mayor and the town council.
Next, to get the rest of the prefecture’s understanding, a group of citizens took up the responsibility to hold talks from the following year. Under the call to “share with 1 million prefecture residents,” they would visit 100 locations in various parts of the prefecture to share the background of the Teshima Incident and the ongoing problems.
“It was difficult. We received calls that criticized our activities. Our representatives came home on the ferries late at night, exhausted mentally and physically. There were tears too.”
But these messengers continued through the gauntlet, doing door-to-door visits, distributing flyers, renting advertising vehicles, doing numerous phone calls and standing demonstrations. Eventually, their actions gathered traction and a shift towards change began.
Restoring Teshima
Today, with the hefty costs and without financial profitability, the cleanup project is facing fatigue, so much so that even some residents of Teshima have doubts on its continuance. But Ishii is insistent that the current generation must be responsible and see this through.
“What’s left for us now is to return nature back to how it was. It’s about leaving this place for the next generations so it wouldn’t be a burden for them.”
Teshima was a self-sufficient island that was once blessed by the gifts of nature, and was a popular destination for trade during the Edo Period. Rice, yam and squid were among the top produces. The abundance even allowed them to provide extra provisions outside of the island. Post-war Teshima was also once called the “Island of Milk” for providing a sanatorium to ensure nourishment for babies, and the “Island of Welfare” for establishing welfare facilities, including a nursing home and a group home for the intellectually disabled.
Teshima wants to return to its original state with these gifts to share and provide. The current Teshima generation wants the next generation to inherit these gifts, not the remnants of the Incident.
In the beginning, it had an uphill battle against the bad reputation that Teshima gained as “Garbage Island.” Strawberry farming led the first fight, as the farm avoided the use of soil, reduced use of pesticides and leveraged on technology to maintain the ideal conditions for strawberries to grow. Today, Teshima strawberries have not only gathered a loyal following, but are also now a symbol of regeneration in Teshima.
The Olive Fund was also established for reforestation within the Seto Inland Sea, beginning with olive trees. It serves as a reminder that anthropogenic protection of nature is the basis for coexistence with nature. The trees also represent the promise of a better future.
Education is also a key part of Teshima’s restoration efforts. Teshima opened the Teshima School, an experience tour to allow participants to learn about the Teshima Incident. The main goal is to spur discussions like what went wrong and why Teshima found support during its fights.
We, the mass consumers, are not innocent in this
In an earlier interview, Ishii brought up a question, “Are the victims really victims?”
During Teshima’s residents’ activism, their message has not strayed from “we are the generation who have created this problem.” Their focus was on the legacy that the current generation wants to leave to future generations, which is reflected in their insistence on restoring the nature of Teshima.
Mass production and consumption were lead causes in the Teshima Incident. Society grew in our desire to consume more and needed a place to dump our growing garbage. Consequently, someone was able to come in and exploit us with a fake solution with devastating consequences. We are not innocent in this. The Teshima Incident is not a problem where we are the third party, but it is an issue that comes back to us.
This is one of the most important lessons we have learned from the Teshima Incident. It is easy to point fingers at the perpetrators, but we are all part of a system, and thus we are part of the problems. Teshima island’s problem is also Kagawa Prefecture’s problem. Fukushima’s problem is also Japan’s problem. The Climate Crisis is everyone’s problem. We cannot afford to coin it as “others’ problems” to avert our eyes from them.
“May there never be a second Teshima [Incident]”
Two years ago, we looked at Minamata Disease, at how development and economic gains were prioritized over environmental protection and the public health. It brought the world’s attention to industrial pollution and created the Minamata Convention to eliminate the harm from mercury poisoning. Yet, that mistake was repeated in the Teshima Incident.
“If Japan had learned well from Minamata and Minamata Disease, incidents like Teshima Incident would not have happened at all,” Ishii shared thoughtfully.
Unfortunately, the lesson learned from Minamata was about the “danger of toxicity” in nature and society. To society and the government, they do not see the link to Teshima’s “waste” issue. Little thought was given to the impact of waste in Japan then.
But the same mistakes occurred in both Minamata and Teshima. We saw the irresponsibility of industry, willing to sacrifice nature and society for profit. We witnessed the absence of a moral government to prioritize human lives over economic development. And perhaps the gravest mistake was the indifference to the people most affected by the problems.
Today, Teshima has a population of 700, a considerable decrease from the 4,000 in the early post-war era. However, the awe remains strong. It is the awe of how Teshima residents have historically fought through the injustice for decades, overwatched the clearance of the industrial waste, and now striving to restore Teshima’s beauty. That spirit is why Teshima is no longer called “Garbage Island” anymore.
[Reference] Teshima School (Japanese)[Reference] Teshima no kokoro Museum
[Reference] Questioning the Richness II, 5 years after arbitration, Teshima Incident Records (Jun 2005)
