politics

Noda urges all of Japan to help with disposal of tsunami debris

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What i understand from local tv channels is Noda will make it "compulsory" for all local govts to accept radiation tainted debris. Is my japanese poor or article has missed this point?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

I think he's going to send the lot to Kadena. They have facilities for dealing with it there and it shows how much he respects Okinawa.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

This is a joke. Terrible PM.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Dispose of it where it stands. Why spread radiation all over Japan?

"The world lavished praise on the spirit of the Japanese for helping one another in the aftermath of the disaster," Noda said. "That Japanese psyche is being tested again. The processing of debris is a symbol of that."

You are blatantly insulting the intelligence of your constituents. "Pitching in" and allowing you and yours to be put in harms way are not the same thing.

Get a clue, Noda.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

Pamelot for president! I agree 100% why spread the damn stuff all over Japan doesn't make sence at all

-1 ( +5 / -6 )

Would you take it if they can prove it is not contaminated then?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Why move this material to places where you have to build new incinerators to burn it? And then wonder why you cannot create jobs in Tohoku. Sometimes I have to think that the people running Japan's government are either profoundly short sighted or insanely corrupt.

Why would you build new incinerators elsewhere to support buring this material? Build them there in the area and creat jobs. It is common sense. Unless, of course, you are incentivized to build them elsewhere by corruption and graft.

So what is it Noda? Why does it have to be all over Japan when it can clearly be addressed with the benefit of new jobs in Tohoku? Who is paying of promising you something to have it elsewhere?

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Perhaps the government should have given accurate information post 3/11/2011. If we hadn't been lied to from day one we could perhaps trust the government when they say the debris is non-radioactive. There is no way in hell anyone with any common sense would allow the government to force this debris into other prefectures. Keep the radioactive bonfire in the already contaminated areas instead of infecting the whole of Japan.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

There is more to worry about then radiation which is conveniently left out, all the debris is a mix of concrete, wood, oil, gas, chemicals, literally EVERYTHING under the sun, you burn bury or whatever & you WILL have issues of toxins in the environment, J-incinerators spew way too much dioxin as it is, which they kindly never let the public know about.

Its simple NO ONE TRUSTS THE GOVT, nor shud they, from every standpoint this stuff needs to be taken care of as locally as possible, there done!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What a fool Noda is. What a joke this is. Why is it so difficult to see the obvious? Well said above my fellow commentators.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

PM Noda, 'NO!'

0 ( +1 / -1 )

If the debris are not removed, reconstruction of the areas can not even begin. It's that simple. I'm sick and tired of everyone talking of kizuna and then refusing to accept part of the debris. People who live there pass by everyday and are constantly reminded of the horror of 3.11. Noda hasn't made this compulsory, but my opinion is he should. If all of it could be stored in Miyagi and the other two pref., believe me, it already would have been processed. They try to clean the areas to secure capacity to rebuild the cities. Without moving away the rubble that's impossible. I don't mind them burring some in my yard, for Christ's sake.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Dispose of it where it stands.

NO!

Why spread radiation all over Japan?

There is no radiation in this debris. The entire country must pitch in and help!

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

Pile it around the nuclear plants. Lots of space there.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Again the Government sides with dubious business and ignores the smart options, the waist could be used as Zichi says providing jobs and solving a problem,until this becomes a profitable excersice for a shady government their best option is spreading the waist everywhere to line the pockets of their benefactors. Third world politics propping up the ficard of first world governance. It's a feudal country that treats it's citizens as tenured surfs.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Yeah. Let's all get sick.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Why, do we share in the profits construction companies get from the government for building new incinerators? DO IT IN TOHOKU! It makes NO sense to not build incinerators there to clean up the rubble up there, and as another poster stated it has the double bonus of creating jobs locally. Even for political posturing this is above and beyond.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

zichi

totally agree. but part of this is because most prefectures are unwilling to accept the debris and -- as you say -- there's no reconstruction plan that will make them accept them. while it's true that there are vast areas of cleared land, it's also true that less than 7% of the debris have been cleared out -- one year later. The rest 93% stay untouched -- well, stored in 3-4-meter piles along the streets. So far, only Tokyo, several municipalities in Aomori and Yamanashi have accepted debris so far. Shame on the rest.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

the debris from miyagi and iwate have already been screened for radiation -- there's none.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

How disgraceful. To use a day of national remembrance to advance this ludicrous, brown-envelope-driven agenda.

There is a debate to be had on this issue - or rather Noda needs to put forward one single good counter-argument to the excellent points made above - but yesterday was not the time to open this can of graft-riddled worms.

Hang your head in shame, Mr Noda.

-1 ( +5 / -7 )

I sincerely propose the Japanese government engages all of its good will and ganbare Japanese spirit and fills the underground Diet carpark with tsunami debris.

Then see how keen the politicians are to "recognize that we are all directly involved in reconstruction.”

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Following on with Zichi, I also doubt 23 million tons of the debris is free from contamination.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

The government insists debris in Iwate and Miyagi, north of Fukushima, is virtually radiation free and does not pose a risk to human health when incinerated or processed.

So why is it that the incineration plant visible from my balcony, which began accepting debris with suspicious haste last year, had to be shut down in October because ash produced by incinerating "safe" waste was showing tens of thousands of becquerels of Caesium per kilogram?

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/radioactive-ash-causes-shutdown-of-kashiwa-incinerators

I find it insulting that the Government expects us to stop thinking and accept meekly the poisoning of the entire country, particularly when they wrap it up in the emotional blackmail language used above.

"Will you accept this? It isn't dangerous, promise"

"No"

"Why do you hate your fellow Japanese? Where is your kizuna?"

-1 ( +5 / -7 )

The wood debris shud be able to be handled quite easily, hell I use wood chips to make a little mini hiking trail through my yard, the rest of which I cover exposed areas with mulch sourced from my own trees & from a place nearby, about 10cm roughly gets broken down over 2seasons, the bugs & microbes etc do their jobs VERY quick here so wood cud be chipped into chunks of 10-15cm & spread out(of course where wud have to be well thought out) but this cud handle a fair bit, some burning & if appropriate perhaps pulp

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If community doesn't take garbage from TSUNAMI (A kind of Japanese giant wave) then they are not showing KIZUNA (a special connection between Japanese people). This is about patriotism!

-12 ( +2 / -14 )

Patriotism has never been linked to the contamination of beloved country. Fool

1 ( +5 / -4 )

is it time yet for the sarcophagus?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The spreading of waste around Japan does not make sense.

Burning will just concentrate the radiation rapidly and the ash will be dumped into landfill from where it will leak into the ground and slowly poison the environment in another part of japan. We should remember that these disposal sites will need to hold integrity for hundreds,if not thousands of years

0 ( +1 / -1 )

zichi It was on TV this morning - channel 4. They asked people from the affected areas to write them, saying what they need most at the moment. most of them said "we need the debris to be removed faster." many also said that they feel "extremely sad" that many prefectures have refused to cooperate with the issue. so the channel did a follow-up on the case and you could see the reporter walking between 3 to 4-meter-high piles of debris stored at bunch of places in miyagi and iwate. they also reported on the radiation issue, which seems to be most people's concern, saying they screened the debris and they were safe. I can't tell you how much they checked exactly, but is this really the case? Do you think that people would accept them even if every timbre was checked with full reports submitted??? Donald Keene said it the other day: "people no longer feel they have to sacrifice their own comfort for the people in Tohoku." I have exactly the same feeling.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

aeho11,

One aspect that I am sure many are thinking but I havent seen on this thread yet is that if this stuff were to start being trucked around, its only a matter of time before the debris that is knowingly radioactive starts going where its NOT supposed to go, we ahve seen this time & time again, the GOVT & authorities have NO CREDIBILITY what so ever.

That is another reason why the rest of Japan doesnt trust their own govt & sadly with many many good reasons NOT TOO.

About the only waste I can think that might be doable wud be scrap metals that as Zichi said wud need to be smelted, that can only occur in certain places, the rest needs to be taken care of closer to source & this is of course a major issue that must to dealt with, a lot of those affected wont be happy & I dont blame them, BUT, there are simply going to have to be some gut wrenching decisions, made & implemented, sooner the better

3 ( +4 / -1 )

I don´t see why all that shuffling of massive amounts of debris is necessary. Keep the material where it is now, especiallly because there will be large tracts of land that will be uninhabited for a long time.

In Berlin after WW2 the citizens compiled the the debris from bombed out ruins into a rubble mountain, which is now a kind of landmark. Why can´t they do something like that there.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Yep, if there really is no danger of radiation, than make a mountain/monument out of it somewhere up there. That will create jobs, create something good out of the tragedy, and even bring in future tourism, and it saves transporting it further all around the country.

If it IS toxic in anyway, why cart it all around the country and just make further problems.

Then there's the other point to consider. What if you purposely decide you don't want to live close to a nuclear power plant, and you also choose not to live by the sea in an area which has had tsunamis periodically? You go out of your way to avoid stuff like that, but in the end you are told you have to be patriotic, and have a sense of kizuna by accepting the stuff.

And like others have said, after a week of news of how the govt lied to everyone, how can they now say, "Trust us"?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

I read somewhere that the govt wants to incinerate it all over Japan and create little Fukushimas all over beautiful Japan and so in the future when people make comparisons of cancer rates of people from Fukushima with other prefectures, there'll be no big differences to make conclusions on.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

The best way to clear large quantity of tsunami debris is to outsource it.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

This law is one of the few things Noda has done that I agree with. And nice to hear today of the municipalities, starting with Kita-Kyushu of all places, finally deciding to pitch in and help.

This "tsunami was THEIR problem" attitude is sickening.

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

Tigerguy, is this also Noda's solution to the upcoming pension crisis? Shortening the life expectancy all over Japan?

(OK, so I'm not really that cynical. But Noda is still being completely ridiculous here.)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What about the preservation of Fukushima culture? are we happy to just see these people disperse across the country and integrate with their hosts. Whoa my bad, there are no discernible Japanese cultures outside Tokyo.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Noda can't really order municipalities to do something but he can blackmail them by withholding funds to its local politicians for pet projects or bribe them with more money. The government is using this issue as an excuse. The government is wasting time. It has taken much longer to approve money for reconstruction than it did with the Hanshin earthquake. It took much longer to designate a minister to take charge of reconstruction than was the case with Hanshin. Much longer. There are a large number of bureaucratic obstacles to reconstruction. Towns need to fill out plans to get permission from the government just to survey an area to rebuild and then fill out plans to plan the plans they need to fill out to apply for funding and permission to get started. I'm not kidding. I studied planning and environmental policy in postgraduate school and worked in local government in Japan for five years. All of that bollocks could easily be done away with if the government had even the slightest concern about delays to reconstruction. Most towns are still considering whether to build at a higher elevations. In that case, the debris cannot possibly in the way because it is all at lower elevations. There is no need to waste the taxpayers' money hauling the debris to Kyushu and Okinawa or even Tokyo. It can be left as it is for now. This is a complete non issue as far as reconstruction is concerned. There is no need to pollute the nation's cities even more. The government's fixation on debris when it refuses to relax inane regulations is bizarre.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

"the debris from miyagi and iwate have already been screened for radiation -- there's none."

I just noticed this statement. It's ridiculous. As Zichi says, it can't have all been screened. And it hasn't been. The screening that has been accomplished is meaningless. I saw a "screening" session on TV. A local bureaucrat waved a device, couldn't see it closely enough to determine exactly what, beside a lorry filled with debris and pronounced it safe. Another waving of device was conducted in Tokyo with a small portion of the material, placed into a small container, at the rubbish incinerator when it arrived. Reporters were denied the opportunity to check it themselves by waving or otherwise wielding their own devices. Finally, it would require divine intervention for there to be no radiation in that material. Normal household rubbish collected and burned at a city rubbish incinerator would emit some level of radiation under completely normal conditions before the Fukushima debacle. One might opine that the level is low, or not immediately detrimental to public health, but to say it is not radioactive at all is nonsense.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Hiko,

the last thing Japan needs is more irrational thinking in regards to the debris, the single best plans for this stuff is to dispose close as possible to source, not create wealth for yakuza & spread toxins & radiation around the country, this shudnt be hard to understand, hard to implement I get but shud be easy to understand why it needs to move as little as possible!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Darren Brannan - you're talking a lot of sense there. Get ready for the thumbs-downs.

I'm yet to hear a good answer to the question "How can it help the Tohoku people to take away their job opportunities?"

If it's as clean as the boys in nagatacho say it is, it makes no sense to move the stuff around. If it isn't - and going on past form, it isn't - it makes even less sense. The only possible reason is there are a lot of people in construction and waste disposal around the country calling in their favours for a slice of the pie.

-8 ( +0 / -8 )

On top of his comment described in the article, Noda is demanding that all local government over Japan should received a debris as a mandatory. It's quite nice commitment toward the recovery from this disaster. We should be involved in this process.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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