A huge accumulation of industrial waste, including metal, oil and shredded construction material illegally dumped between 1978 and 1990, still occupies nearly 80,000 sq. meters of the 15-sq.-km island of Teshima in the scenic Seto Inland Sea.

Even so, there are signs that the ecosystems damaged by the pollution are being revived. Cuttlefish, sea cactus, grass wrack, crabs and other tiny organisms have recently begun to reappear on the once foul-smelling black sludge mud next to the beach, where the roughly 500,000 tons of harmful waste are buried.

Teshima was the site of one of Japan's worst cases of illegal dumping of industrial waste. Seven years after a settlement was reached between residents and Kagawa prefectural authorities, about one-third of the waste has been removed.