Shin-ichi Sakai

Environment Preservation Center Kyoto University
(Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606 Japan)

Abstract

Many positive policies have been decided for the purpose of strict management of hazardous wastes, in international organizations, European Community, the U.S.A. and Japan. The definitions of hazardous characteristics and hazardous wastes were compared with each other. In Japan, the Amendment of the Waste Disposal Law in 1991 has introduced the regulation of the wastes which is necessary for strict management. In this regulation, the concept of hazardous characteristics has been extended to include both concepts of "dangerous" and "toxic" . Japan's hazardous wastes generation was calculated under the new regulation to be 5.5 million tons per year, which corresponded to 1.5% of the total wastes generation. Priorities in hazardous waste management have been considered to be (1) Clean technology, (2) In-plant recovery/recycling, (3) Offsite recovery/recycling, (4) Degradation/stabilization and (5) Storage/management.

Key words: hazardous wastes, definition, hazardous characteristics, waste generation, management frame, Basel Convention, EC, U.S.A., Japan