Japan-U.S. Teacher Exchange Program for Education for Sustainable Development
Fulbright Japan
Cathrine Prenot Fox
I am not here today to talk to you about chemistry when I refer to "moyai naoshi," もやい直し, or the mending of bonds. Instead, I want to tell you a story of how trash saved a community.
The aftermath of the Chisso Mercury pollution took its toll on the little city of Minamata. Unlike the other of the "four big pollution events" in Japan, the Chisso corporation was an important part of the community it polluted. It employed over one quarter of the townspeople in its heyday in the 1960s and provided half the tax revenue for the city. When people first got sick, other residents thought they might be contagious, and people were quarantined. Later, lawsuits pitted those with the disease against employees of the company, and many of those with the disease became social pariahs. Minamata has a very mountainous region, and as no citizens that lived there got the disease, they were resentful of the 'fisherfolk' that had brought such shame to their town name. In the end, over 1,800 people died, and over 10,000 (some claim many more) have symptoms of the disease.
The famous photographer, W Eugene Smith, who documented wars, jazz musicians, Pittsburgh, famines, and the poignancy of human relationships around the world for Newsweek, Life, and Magnum was also a casuality of Minamata Disease, in a way. After photographing the suffering of Minamata Disease patients he was beaten by Chisso employees in 1972, and he lost his sight in his right eye as a result.
What then, do you do to regain a connection between people, and to rekindle a peoples' connection to nature after this disaster? Minamata decided that they must come together as they had in the past after a storm. When a fishing vessel was damaged, it would be bound to another to make repairs: 'moyai naoshi.' The city decided that the people, like the boats, must be tied to one another by a common cause to repair bonds. Among other activities, they recycled, reused, refused, and sorted the trash that was left behind. They do this as a community.
The city of Minamata separates its waste into twenty four different categories. There are neighborhood garbage receptacles (unlike in the States where we each have our own can), and once a week everyone in the neighborhood brings out their rubbish to be split. The entire effort is coordinated by students, and the town makes approximately $40,000 USD a year that they then invest into other programs.
You should read about it all in Moyai Naoshi, or Mending Bonds.
(Again, if you right click on the cartoon on a PC, or control click on a mac, you should be able to open the cartoon in another window and read it.)
Just as a side note. Mercury is still very much a problem. 4,500 tons of it are still released a year through "coal combustions, mining, industrial processes, and waste disposal." It accumulates in your body over time, such that whatever you consume will still be there years later-additively. Sixteen percent of women of 'childbearing age' in the United States have levels of mercury that exceed EPA suggestions, and freshwater fish in 43 states contain enough mercury that pregnant women are advised not to eat them at all. (M. Donohoe) I don't throw these figures around as a scare tactic, but to make sure that you know that Minamata was not an isolated and unique pollution event. A version of 'Minamata's past' could happen anywhere. However, Minamata's present, its moyai naoshi? Would be a very good thing to replicate indeed.
Until our next adventure,
Cat
The aftermath of the Chisso Mercury pollution took its toll on the little city of Minamata. Unlike the other of the "four big pollution events" in Japan, the Chisso corporation was an important part of the community it polluted. It employed over one quarter of the townspeople in its heyday in the 1960s and provided half the tax revenue for the city. When people first got sick, other residents thought they might be contagious, and people were quarantined. Later, lawsuits pitted those with the disease against employees of the company, and many of those with the disease became social pariahs. Minamata has a very mountainous region, and as no citizens that lived there got the disease, they were resentful of the 'fisherfolk' that had brought such shame to their town name. In the end, over 1,800 people died, and over 10,000 (some claim many more) have symptoms of the disease.
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| W Eugene Smith. Chisso Corporation, 1972. |
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| W Eugene Smith. Minamata Fishermen. |
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| Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath. W Eugene Smith, 1971 |
What then, do you do to regain a connection between people, and to rekindle a peoples' connection to nature after this disaster? Minamata decided that they must come together as they had in the past after a storm. When a fishing vessel was damaged, it would be bound to another to make repairs: 'moyai naoshi.' The city decided that the people, like the boats, must be tied to one another by a common cause to repair bonds. Among other activities, they recycled, reused, refused, and sorted the trash that was left behind. They do this as a community.
The city of Minamata separates its waste into twenty four different categories. There are neighborhood garbage receptacles (unlike in the States where we each have our own can), and once a week everyone in the neighborhood brings out their rubbish to be split. The entire effort is coordinated by students, and the town makes approximately $40,000 USD a year that they then invest into other programs.
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| Recycling station run by Junior High students. |
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| Elementary students to my left (no photos of students' faces allowed) collect trash on the way to school every day. I'm in love. |
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| Cathrine Prenot Fox, 2013. Adventures in Sustainability. |
Just as a side note. Mercury is still very much a problem. 4,500 tons of it are still released a year through "coal combustions, mining, industrial processes, and waste disposal." It accumulates in your body over time, such that whatever you consume will still be there years later-additively. Sixteen percent of women of 'childbearing age' in the United States have levels of mercury that exceed EPA suggestions, and freshwater fish in 43 states contain enough mercury that pregnant women are advised not to eat them at all. (M. Donohoe) I don't throw these figures around as a scare tactic, but to make sure that you know that Minamata was not an isolated and unique pollution event. A version of 'Minamata's past' could happen anywhere. However, Minamata's present, its moyai naoshi? Would be a very good thing to replicate indeed.
Until our next adventure,
Cat
