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A War Against Garbage in Postwar Japan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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When Minobe Ryōkichi declared war against garbage in September 1971, he thrust waste into the public's attention and rendered it visible. The governor of Tokyo was not just encouraging the construction of incinerators and landfills to deal with the rapid proliferation of rubbish then facing the metropolis, but was also provoking discussions about the inescapable costs of high economic growth and mass consumption. The Garbage War (gomi sensō), described below in an excerpt from Waste, ultimately proved to be pivotal in changing conceptions of waste in postwar Japan. Coupled with the Oil Shock of 1973, it revealed how deeply waste had insinuated itself into the values and practices of everyday life, and how a society of mass production and mass consumption was also one of mass waste. Shaped too by ideas of environmental protection, the waste of things, resources, and energy came to be seen as tightly interwoven problems that threatened the security and longevity of middle-class lifestyles.
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References
Notes
1 Ōno Osamu, “Minobe to the Rescue,” Japan Quarterly 16, no. 3 (July-September 1969): 268; Laura Hein, Reasonable Men, Powerful Words (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 191.
2 Shibata Tokue, Nihon no seisō mondai (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1961).
3 In April 1957, the Tokyo Sanitation Bureau had replaced the term “garbage incinerator” (jinkai shōkyakujō) with “incineration plant” or “sanitary treatment plant” (seisō kōjō) to underscore its technological capabilities. Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, ed., Tokyo-to seisō jigyō hyakunen shi (Tokyo: Tokyo-to, 2000), 149.
4 David L. Howell, “Fecal Matters,” in Japan at Nature's Edge, ed. Ian Jared Miller, Julia Adeney Thomas, and Brett L. Walker (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2013), 137.
5 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 249-50; Tokue Shibata, “Land, Waste and Pollution,” in Sustainable Cities, ed. Tamagawa Hidenori (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2006), 103-4.
6 This area of the capital had, in fact, been a dumping ground in the prewar period when residents of what was then Fukagawa ward “had been suffering from fumes, offensive odor, and swarms of flies originating in the open trash landfills.” Indeed, Fukagawa had an “association with waste” as early as the 1700s. Mariko Asano Tamanoi, “Suffragist Women, Corrupt Officials, and Waste Control in Prewar Japan,” Journal of Asian Studies 68, no. 3 (August 2009): 805-7.
7 The original Island of Dreams was Landfill Number Fourteen, which was in use from 1957 to 1967. The (new/second) Island of Dreams was Landfill Number Fifteen, which was in use from 1965 to 1974. Multiple generations of the Island of Dreams would follow.
8 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 233; Nakamura Masanori, Ōraru hisutorī no kanōsei (Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō, 2011), 9; Shibata, “Land, Waste and Pollution,” 101.
9 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 238-39; Shibata, “Land, Waste and Pollution,” 101-2; “Gomi sensō, sono sengen kara Suginami no kaiketsu made,” Gomi sensō shūhō 135 (December 27, 1974): 2-4.
10 Yomiuri shinbun, May 22 and 23, 1973; Asahi shinbun, May 23 and 24, 1973; Mainichi shinbun, May 22 and 23, 1973; Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 243; Nakamura, Ōraru hisutorī, 2, 34.
11 Yomiuri shinbun, May 24, 1973; Asahi shinbun, May 25, 1973; Mainichi shinbun, May 26, 1973.
12 An exhibit titled “Let's Shine a Light on Garbage,” displayed in the metropolitan government building in the fall of 1971, sought to “shine a light on” and “make magnificent” what was in the shadows: the kitchen, the garbage bin, and the privy. Yorimoto, “Gomi ni hikari o ateyō,” 14.
13 Gomi to tokonoma (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, October 5, 1973).
14 Nakamura, Ōraru hisutorī, 40-44; Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 252-54; Shibata, “Land, Waste and Pollution,” 104-5; Margaret A. McKean, Environmental Protest and Citizen Politics in Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 105.
15 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 614-15.
16 The percentage of respondents who required conditions was 69.6 percent; those who did not, 5.5 percent. Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, ed., Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa hōkokusho (Tokyo: Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, 1971), 31.
17 In the 1971 survey, only 5.5 percent of the respondents did not require conditions; in 1973, 18.6 percent. Also, note that the wording of the multiple-choice answer changed from “absolutely opposed” in 1971 to “opposed” in 1973. Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, ed., Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa (Tokyo: Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, 1973), 18. For those who agreed to the construction of an incineration plant with conditions, the most commonly cited condition by far was no emission of pollution (64.1 percent), followed by cleanliness (22.5 percent), and no pollution by garbage trucks (20.7 percent). For those who were opposed, the top reason by far was emission of pollution (70.9 percent).
18 On the question of whether each area should dispose of its own garbage, the percentage who were opposed or somewhat opposed in 1971 was 20.3; in 1973, it was 4.9. Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa hōkokusho, 27; Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa, 19.
19 On the question of building a sanitary treatment plant in Suginami ward, 44.1 percent agreed or agreed somewhat; 31 percent were opposed or somewhat opposed. Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa hōkokusho, 25. At the same time, there was empathy (72.9 percent in support) for the stance of Kōtō residents against the transporting of others' garbage into their ward. Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa hōkokusho, 23.
20 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku, Tokyo no gomi, 44-46.
21 On citizen activism and antipollution movements, see McKean, Environmental Protest and Citizen Politics; Timothy S. George, Minamata (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001); Simon Andrew Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Simon Avenell, Transnational Japan in the Global Environmental Movement (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017); and Brett L. Walker, Toxic Archipelago (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010).
22 Jeffrey Broadbent, Environmental Politics in Japan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 120-28.
23 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku, Tokyo no gomi, 46.
24 This phrase was published by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in a weekly report on the Garbage War. Oshida Isao, “ ‘Suteru’ to wa (2),” Gomi sensō shūhō 80 (July 13, 1973): 4-6; “Gomi kara mono o kangaeyō,” Gomi sensō shūhō 41 (September 29, 1972): 2.
25 Asahi shinbun, May 17, 1970; Asahi Shinbun Keizaibu, ed., Kutabare GNP (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1971), iv.
26 John Kenneth Galbraith, “The GNP as Status Symbol and Success Story,” in Asahi Shinbun Keizaibu, Kutabare GNP, vii.
27 Tsuru Shigeto, “In Place of GNP,” Social Science Information 10 (August 1971): 8. See also Hein, Reasonable Men, Powerful Words, 206.
28 Scientist Ui Jun, for example, argued that “understanding pollution as a distortion or a consequence was a mistake. On the contrary … pollution made high-speed growth possible; it was the third pillar [daisan no hashira] of the miracle.” Avenell, Making Japanese Citizens, 155.
29 Yorimoto, “Gomi ni hikari o ateyō,” 13-14.
30 Shibata Tokue quoted in Nakamura, Ōraru hisutorī, 25.
31 Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku Sōmubu Sōmuka, Tokyo-to seisō jigyō, 246-47. See also Yomiuri shinbun, December 16, 1974.
32 Each year from 1972 to 1976, the bureau received well over four thousand entries from over one hundred elementary schools. Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku, ed., Minna de gomi mondai o kangaeru (Tokyo: Tokyo-to Seisōkyoku, 1977), 4-5, 30-32, 35.
33 Tokyo-to Tominshitsu, Gomi mondai ni kansuru seron chōsa hōkokusho, 13.
34 On the question about the amount of garbage discarded, 70.2 percent responded that it had increased “very much” and 24.8 percent said “somewhat.” Ibid., 5-7.
35 Ōhashi Tomoko, “Gomi sensō to Suginami Shōhisha no Kai,” Shimin 7 (March 1972): 135.
36 “Ankēto,” Toseijin 362 (February 1972): 48-49.