In order to prevent illegal dumping of medical waste, a traceability verification test of medical waste is performed by the Tokyo metropolitan government, the Tokyo Medical Association, pharmaceutical industry and industrial waste management businesses, where IC tags are affixed to medical waste containers to check in real time where individual consigned medical waste is and whether or not it has been disposed of. This system records necessary data in an IC tag, reads the data with a card reader and processes it on a personal computer. By interfacing with GPS and the electronic manifest system to effectively process data, it will be possible to ascertain the state of waste within several days, which requires 1 to 2 months with paper manifests.

## 2 Measures against hazardous substances

If waste contains a hazardous substance, or if a hazardous substance is unintentionally generated in the course of waste management, secondary pollution may result. Therefore, it is necessary to remove hazardous substances contained in waste during disposal and to prevent secondary pollution from occurring in the treatment process. Such measures against hazardous substances require various technologies, adapted to individual hazardous substances.

In Japan, as measures against hazardous substances contained in waste, the Waste Management Law was revised in 1991 to include a new category of waste under special control, which requires stricter management. Waste that is explosive, toxic or infectious or that may be harmful to human health or the living environment is designated as waste under special control. Concretely, parts from home electric appliances that contain PCB, soot and dust generated in municipal waste incinerators and infectious waste generated in medical institutions are designated as general waste under special control. Waste PCB, PCB contaminated matter, waste asbestos and matter containing concentrated hazardous substances, such as mercury, the criteria concentrations of which exceed a certain value, are designated as industrial waste under special control.

In this paragraph, countermeasure technologies against hazardous substances are introduced, taking as examples mercury, PCB and asbestos as representative hazardous substances contained in waste, dioxins as secondary pollutant substances generated in the waste management process, and infectious waste. In addition to these, various technologies are used as countermeasures against exhaust gas in order to control sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, etc. that are generated by incineration facilities or to treat drain water from incineration facilities and landfill sites, thus preventing the occurrence of secondary pollution in the waste management system. In order for the site selection for a waste management facility to be accepted by the people living in the area, secondary pollution prevention measures need to be taken.

## (1) Mercury

In 1983, a major social problem came to light as a result of a study by the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Institute for Environmental Protection on the risks of environmental pollution caused by mercury through the processes of incinerating or disposing of discarded dry-cell batteries that contain mercury. As measures against this problem, the use of mercury has been banned in manganese batteries since April 1991 and in alkaline batteries since