Abstract
Soil contaminations by illegal dumping of hazardous wastes containing dioxins or PCBs have been serious problems all over Japan. The local residents often distrust the countermeasures proposed by the local government or the responsible company from the safety point of view. Therefore, there are many places where the actual disposal process faces many difficulties. However, in Teshima in Kagawa Prefecture, Hashimoto City of Wakayama Prefecture, and Nose Town in Osaka Prefecture, the residents accepted onsite disposal process based on the mutual agreement through the environmental disputes mediation, and the on-site disposal process for rendering the contaminated soil and wastes harmless has been started. We compared these processes in three different sites and found requirements indispensable for residents' participation in such on-site disposal process are as follows:(1) Safety: disposal process proposed should not cause any secondary contamination.(2) Reliability: disposal process proposed should be performed by reliable technologies.(3) Residents' participation: disposal process proposed should be carried out based on the principle of information disclosure. They can be called as three major principles indispensable for harmless disposal processes. Furthermore, in order to secure the participation of the residents, the risk communication among the persons concerned is indispensable. Accordingly, we concluded that the rules in the contribution of experts in technologies in this risk communication process are the interpreter and advocator.
