A New Day Dawns—Page 2

If industry dragged its feet at first, city politicians were quicker to respond, not least because the women's groups were poised to make pollution an electoral issue. Shortly after the national government passed Japan's first real pollution laws in 1967, Kitakyushu began establishing even tougher regulations. Factories there installed over 1,000 air cleaners between 1967 and 1978, and switched at great cost to low-sulfur fuel in the early '70s, which drastically cut emissions of smog-causing sulfur dioxide (SO2). Beginning in 1972 the city dredged 350,000 cu m of mercury-contaminated soil from the bottom of Dokai Bay, with industry paying 71% of the cost. Equally important, the local government gave teeth to its many regulations, requiring companies in 1971 to immediately cut SO2 emissions by 20-40% on days when weather conditions made smog formation especially likely.

Though much of urban Japan wouldn't turn the corner on pollution until the late '70s, dust levels in Kitakyushu fell nearly 75% from 1970-75, thanks chiefly to reduced use of coal. Kitakyushu's pioneering housewives had made the difference. "If there had been no women's movement, I believe our countermeasures would have been significantly delayed," says Reiji Hitsumoto, an environmental official with the city government. The heartening lesson of Kitakyushu—which in 1990 became the first Japanese city to win the United Nations Environmental Programme's (UNEP) Global 500 Award—is that concerned citizens, let loose to express their views, can save even the most polluted city.

That's a lesson that Kitakyushu is passing on to developing cities that are themselves struggling with the environmental burdens of industrialization. Since 1980 Kitakyushu, with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, has been dispatching environmental consultants to developing countries to help local governments plan and implement antipollution measures based on the Kitakyushu model. Over the years the city has also trained thousands of visiting environmental officers from abroad in everything from waste management to cleaner industrial production. The results can be seen in Dalian, a smokestack city in northeastern China that was once a carbon copy of the polluted Kitakyushu of the 1960s. Over the past 15 years, Kitakyushu has trained factory managers from Dalian, refitted plants there with clean industrial technology and conducted a detailed, three-year environmental survey that helped the local government develop a model environmental zone—turning Dalian into a test tube for fixing China's pollution woes. The cooperation has paid off: Dalian achieved an environmental renaissance under Kitakyushu's guidance, joining it on UNEP's honor roll in 2001.

The transformation of Kitakyushu and Dalian is powerful proof that even cities accustomed to measuring their success solely by GDP can discover the importance of green, sustainable growth. "Combining environmental efforts with economic benefits has become a vital international issue," says Hiro Mizoguchi, the director of Kitakyushu's Office for International Environmental Cooperation. "I definitely think it can be accomplished, and our effort is part of that." For Kitakyushu, this commitment to a cleaner future is now fundamental to its character. The city that once celebrated its pollution in patriotic verse—"Flames may burn out sea waves and smoke will fill the whole sky," went one song—now boasts its own environment museum, where former factory workers like Kaminaga spread the green gospel to schoolchildren. "People here feel about the environment the way they used to about production," he says. "I'm proud of my city."

With reporting by Yuki Oda/Kitakyushu

1 | 2

	Learning to Fly Green [Sep. 25, 2006] Air travel can be an environmentally dirty business. A couple tips on making it cleaner Dangerous Dive [Jul. 10, 2006] The perils and politics of swimming in China's Pearl River Still Losing a Harbor [Jun. 19, 2006] Hong Kong has a rare opportunity to fix its unwelcoming waterfront. Think it will take it? China's Toxic Shock [Nov. 27, 2005] A huge chemical spill shuts down a city's water--and another clumsy official cover-up is exposed The Middle Landfill [Nov. 17, 2003] China's economy vs. its environment More Related Items | Search all issues of TIME Magazine