(1) Yokkaichi Area Pollution Control Program

Environmental Pollution Responses in Yokkaichi

In December 1970, the national government designated Yokkaichi as the primary area of the Basic Law for Environmental Pollution Control. This was accompanied by the establishment of the Yokkaichi-Area Pollution Control Program, under which a variety of pollution control approaches had been deployed with expenses over 150 billion yen through the period from 1971 to 1977.
The program has proposed control targets according to the types of pollution – the use of low sulfur fuel, introduction of tall smokestacks and flue-gas treatment process, and upgrading of dust collectors for air pollution control, improvement of waste-water treatment facilities for water pollution control, and noise-insulating facilities for noise pollution control -thereby motivating private enterprises to initiate actions for decreasing pollution.
This approach has fulfilled their function more successfully than originally expected in Yokkaichi. Preceding 11 other target cities of the areawide total pollution control, Yokkaichi achieved the level of ambient SO2 standard on a long-term basis in 1976, Since then, SO2 concentration has been kept below the target predetermined by Mie Prefecture (See Figure 2-7 and 2-8).