There was a shocking news from Kyodo News. On June 5th, a deep-submergence vehicle named Shinkai 6500 of JAMSTEC: Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (海洋研究開発機構), dived into 750m deep of Sagami Bay 相模湾, and found a “sea plateau” pile of plastic garbage. They were identifiable tens of years ago plastic packages of ramen noodles, somebody’s bucket, et al, many of which still held logos and names of food or else. Shocking. The article continued not much was known why they gathered there or how they could (if any) decompose … Sad. Among Niiharu Lovers these days, plastic garbage often becomes a popular idle talk topic. “You see? Now the meat of fishes for our supper contains chemicals oozed out of microplastic in the Ocean.” “Yeah, so does the veggies that absorbs the material from the trashed soil.” “I’ve heard as we’re eating them, more than 70% of our body is already contaminated by old plastics.” Yack. Really?
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| Sagami Bay |
One of the main tasks for weekend volunteering in Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森 is patrolling the forest for any danger or unsightly scenes preventing us from enjoying the place. We deal with the problem one-by-one. If there is a large tree fallen and blockaded the trekking route, or small landslide is found, we arrange the removal of it either by ourselves or asking the City to hire pro. We also collect trashes when we find any. They are not only ugly, but also pollute the soil with industrial poisons, such as PCB and the other things. Seniors said when the forest became the Citizen Forest in 2000, there still were many illegal damping deliberately concealed in the neglected forest ground. Each time the Lovers pulled out televisions or chairs from the forest, carried them manually to the designated collection point outside the forest, and reported the City to pick them up. After more than 20 years of such activities now it is not so common to encounter such unsocial behavior in Niiharu Citizen Forest. Still, every weekend we pick up plastic bottles of soft drinks or candy wrappers casually thrown away along the forest route. I would say such rubbishes are comparatively easy to deal with. June is the beginning of the season for mowing. We use sickles or motored weed cutters and find plastic or (worse) metallic litter hiding in the bushy grass. They are not only unhygienic, but also dangerous. We must operate our machine carefully not to suffer mechanical kick-back of sharp blade. When a machine runs at the full-speed and hits by unusually hard object like damped metal, the blade could swing unexpectedly, and we may lose the control of the tool. The worst-case scenario is death hit by uncontrolled blade or such hard garbage thrown up by the high-speed spin. It’s depressing to find a shadow of such garbage within grass ...
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| Here’s the one! |
In Miyagi Prefecture 宮城県, there is a famous Non-Profit Organization called “Mori wa Umi no Koibito 森は海の恋人.” The original founders of the group were professional fishermen who nurtured oysters in Kesen’numa Bay 気仙沼. Some 50-60 years ago, their sea was suffering frequent red tide due to discharges from rivers. The fishermen found the origin from which the river carried such contaminated water was degraded forests. The rainwater fallen over the forest went through the polluted ground and amassed the problematic materials when it reached the river. Many tainted rivers poured in the bay and the sea became a damping ground of waste, which became red tide. So, the fishermen started voluntary afforestation in the forests along the rivers that came into their sea. “Mori wa Umi no Koibito” means “The forest is longing for the sea, the sea is longing for the forest.” Their activity has become a sort of national movement in Japan. Thanks to them, we somehow know when we have garbaged forest, the sea near the forest is also full of junk. Niiharu Citizen Forest is located at the edge of the tributary of Tsurumi River 鶴見川 that pours into Tokyo Bay. The plastics and their chemicals from our forest will eventually end up in Tokyo Bay, and beyond. Lovers of Niiharu is collecting the garbage every weekend. We are longed …
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| Katase-higashi-hama, last Saturday |
True, there were not many large garbage on beach. When we collected only such litter our trash bag continued to be light. But there were too many unusually colored dots in sand. They were plastic colors of bright red, blue, green, yellow, ... Lots of seaweeds washed up on the shore. In their tangled fronds, there were many string-like inorganic materials, probably the remnants of fishing nets, fishlines, plastic ribbons, or decomposing supermarket plastic bags. I first tried to untangle them from natural sands and seaweeds, and soon frustrated. My garbage bag ended up with piles of seaweeds cum plastics and sands with microplastics. They were wet and heavy. I dragged them to the designated garbage collection point and felt helpless. Yeah, we are collecting apparently visible plastic bottles and trashes in the forest, but now the old, or new, plastic rubbish changed their apparition that could easily reject easy way of garbage collection. The situation must be very serious now even in seemingly “clean” Japanese forests ...
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| What are those colored “sands”? |
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| Here, here, and here … |
If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター
657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121 厚木市七沢657
Phone: 046-248-0323
You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/
