Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Thursday visited an island in the Seto Inland Sea where some 660,000 tons of industrial waste was illegally dumped from around the early 1980s.
The purpose of the 25-minute visit to Teshima was to see the waste detoxification operations that began in September.
Under the program, agreed to after a legal battle that lasted more than six years, the waste is shipped from Teshima to nearby Naoshima on a special ferry that makes two round trips a day.
A plant there burns the waste at extremely high temperatures together with contaminated soil, and the detoxified waste is recycled.
After getting a briefing on the process from Kagawa Gov. Takeki Manabe, Koizumi told reporters it is important that everyone make efforts to reduce garbage.
"The beauty of the island needs to be restored through environmental protection and scientific technology," he said.
While Teshima residents welcomed the first visit ever to the island by a prime minister, some said the inspection trip was too short.
"I wish that we residents, rather than the governor, could have explained the island to him so that he could have heard what we have to say," said Mitsuo Sunagawa, a member of a residents' group active in getting the illegal waste off the island.
