Spatial Distribution Characteristics of Industrial Waste Management Facilities and Illegal Dumping Sites in the Kanto region

Abstract

Conflicts have frequently arisen in the process of facility siting for industrial waste management facilities (IWMFs) in Japan, which are undesirable for residents who are living nearby. Since, from the viewpoint of environmental justice, it would not be appropriate for these sites to have disproportionate spatial distribution, their spatial distributions were examd. quant. In addn. to the IWMFs, the spatial distribution of illegal industrial waste dumping sites, also causing social problems, was also analyzed. This paper concerns landfill sites, intermediate processing facilities (incineration facilities, shredding/crushing facilities, dewatering facilities), and illegal dumping sites for nine prefectures in the Kanto region, which were counted by municipality units, and investigates trends for each locality using a geog. information system (GIS). Our results showed that through a statistical anal. for pos. spatial autocorrelation, a significant level of 1% existed in the distribution, which therefore indicates that there are spatially uneven distributions. In addn., a similarity between the spatial distribution of landfills and illegal dumping sites was obsd. at a significant level of 1%. This finding makes it clear that similar factors could possibly exist and result in uneven siting for both of these types of facilities. [on SciFinder(R)]