住民を悩ませる“巨大な山”はごみ？資源？ 飛散･崩落･異臭…市内に約3万トン 業者は｢油にリサイクルする原料｣ 愛知･豊橋市

A "Giant Mountain" Troubling Residents: Is it "Garbage" or "Resources"? What's the Reality? In Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture, a "giant blue mountain" suddenly appeared in a field. (Kurumi Nakajima, Reporter) "It's a mass that looks like garbage, stretching far into the distance. Looking closely, it seems to be a compacted mass of paper, cloth, and plastic." Covered by a blue net, it's 3 to 4 meters high. At first glance, it looks like a mountain of garbage. What exactly is this? Local residents have been concerned about it for some time. (Neighborhood Association Chairman, Michinaga Nagura) "It's been left there for quite a long time, so grass is growing. In some places, trees are growing." The packaging began to appear about 5 years ago. The open-air piles right next to the municipal hospital began about 5 years ago. (Nagura-san) "Originally, it was an eel farm. They sold the land and left, and after a while, it was reclaimed. I wondered what they were going to do with it, and then they started putting out packaging materials." The open-air piles grew rapidly, and now they've reached nearly 10,000 tons. Footage from a helicopter four years ago, in 2022, already shows a quantity almost the same as it is now. (Nagura-san) "It's hard to say it's being managed. When typhoons like the one we had recently come, there's a risk of it being blown away, which is worrying. The municipal hospital is nearby, so if it were to catch fire, since it's plastic, it would be difficult to extinguish once it starts, and I think it would affect the facility." Eight locations in Toyohashi City, including one that has collapsed... In fact, including this location, eight such open-air piles totaling approximately 32,000 tons have been confirmed in Toyohashi City, and they are all managed by the same corporate group. In another location, this past May… (Mr. Takayoshi Muramatsu, a nearby resident) "The area where the brown packaging materials were piled up completely collapsed." A video taken by Mr. Muramatsu, a nearby resident, immediately after the collapse… (May 26th, filmed by Mr. Muramatsu) "The river is buried. It's spilling onto the road." Mr. Muramatsu contacted Toyohashi City, and a contractor cleaned it up that same day. (Mr. Muramatsu) "Glass and bowl fragments were scattered everywhere, making it dangerous." "Raw materials for extracting oil," the contractor explained to residents. At a nearby house, the piles of waste material were right up against the hedge, and from the second-floor balcony, the piles stretched as far as the eye could see. Also, at another house… (Nearby resident) "When I opened the screen door, it smelled terrible, and sometimes I couldn't open it." "Sometimes there's a slight smell. I don't hang my laundry outside." The surrounding residents have established the "Association to Protect Townspeople from Open-Air Waste Plastic." Over 100 people attended the residents' briefing held in May. The company reportedly explained that it was "not garbage, but plastic raw material for extracting oil." However, the mixture of shoes, wood, and cardboard looks like industrial waste. Oil Production from Plastic: Company Says "It's Raw Material for Us" To find out the reality, we visited the company involved… (SHINKA President Katsushi Nishida) "Our equipment is designed so that if you fill a basket with plastic-based materials and place it on top of the device, you can extract about 50% oil and about 15% charcoal. From the residents' perspective, it probably just looks like garbage. But for us, it's raw material." We were shown a huge device that uses thermal decomposition of plastics to produce oil. While we couldn't confirm the device's operation that day, they explained that oil can be produced from plastic in about six hours. They also demonstrated generating electricity using oil made from tires and other materials… (President Nishida) "This would power about 20 of these lights. This device is still quite small and can't process tens of tons a day, but we aim to enlarge it to process 100 tons a day." If commercialized, it would be a "groundbreaking recycling"—what are the prospects for realizing this? He says they aim to commercialize the project by creating a device about ten times larger in the future. If they can process 100 tons a day, the 32,000 tons currently stored in the city would be processed in about a year. The materials piled up in the open are industrial waste that a group company has taken in from another company for money. However, they now consider it a "resource" for recycling. If this can be commercialized, it would be a groundbreaking "recycling" project, but when asked when it will be realized… (President Nishida) "We had a target of completing it by the end of the year, but it's about a quarter behind. I feel that the field tests will be finished by this time next year." The city has also provided administrative guidance… "Open-air storage isn't neces...