The effects of mitigating inequity burden on public acceptance of reusing the removed soil

Abstract

This study examined the factors affecting public acceptance of the designation of areas in the Recycling Demonstration Project for Soil Generated from Decontamination Activities. The designated areas are requested to receive the soil collected after the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. This introduces what typically known as a Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) issue, which dominates around the inequitable allocation of a given burden and hinders the building of consensus. This study assumed that allocating the burden to multiple locations instead of only one location would increase acceptance. An experiment was conducted which presented a scenario manipulating the burden allocation amongst a sample of adults requited from all over Japan. The results revealed that participants who were allocated to the multiple-locations condition evaluated the situation as having less inequity, fewer risks and stigma, and a fairer procedure, as well as being more acceptable than those who were allocated to the one-place condition.