Yoichi Kamiya
Environmental Health and Safety Division
Ministry of the Environment of Japan

Japan had already faced the POPs problems long before inter-governmental negotiations for the adoption of the POPs Convention were initiated around 1995. The experience of Japan is exemplified below.

In 1968, Japan experienced a PCB contamination of cooking oil damaging the health of consumers. In 1973, Japan banned the production and use of PCB and introduced a system to regulate substances with properties similar to PCB. Since then, Japan has accumulated experience in environmental monitoring, as well as the assessment of persistence and bioaccumulation of chemicals. The issue of the treatment of existing PCBs remained into the 21st Century, since the construction of PCB treatment facilities by the private sector did not progress as expected. Therefore, in 2001, a special law to clarify the duties of the companies concerning storage and disposal of PCB was enacted, and PCB disposal facilities were constructed by public authorities. At present, PCB is being disposed of in accordance with this law.

With regard to dioxins and furans, certain measures started in the 1980s, and in the late 1990s the issue drew public attention when high levels of dioxins were detected in environmental samples. In response to rising public anxiety, the Government established a policy guideline setting a target to reduce the total amount of dioxin emission by 90% from the emission level in 1997 by March 2003. In order to meet this target, a special law was enacted to implement strict emission regulations. As a result of this control, total dioxin emission level in 2003 was reduced by 95% from the level of 1997, and achieved the original target.

As a leading country in the global efforts against POPs, Japan ratified the Stockholm Convention in August 2002, and established the National Implementation Plan in June 2005. Japan nominated members to the POPs Review Committee, which will review the proposals for additional POPs, as well as to the Expert Group on Best Available Technology and Best Environmental Practice, of which Japan already hosted a meeting in Tokyo in 2004.

Particularly, Japan intends to take a leading role in the environmental monitoring of POPs. With its long experience in dioxin monitoring, Japan extended the high-resolution monitoring to all the 12 POPs in 2003. Based on this experience and expertise, Japan hosted two workshops on POPs Monitoring in East Asia in 2002 and 2003, and one expert group meeting in 2005. Cooperative trial monitoring started with Indonesia, Korea and Vietnam. A third workshop, planned in October 2005 in Tokyo, will review the progress of the trial monitoring and discuss future direction of this monitoring initiative, to contribute to the effectiveness evaluation process of the Stockholm Convention.