1. Who Would Be Willing to Accept Disaster Debris in Their Backyard?
2017 EROPA Conference, The Role of Public Governance in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming, Empowering and Network-Building, Sept. 11 – 15.
Who Would Be Willing to Accept Disaster Debris in Their Backyard?
Investigating the determinants of public attitudes in post-Fukushima Japan
© N. Aoki
Naomi AOKI, Assistant Professor
National University of Singapore,

2. The 2011 tsunami generated approximately twenty million tons of debris in 239 municipalities.

3. MoE’s Waste Management Division
CROSS-JURISDICTIONAL
WASTE TREATMENT
MoE’s Waste Management Division
Figure derived from Kato, M. (2013); MoE stands for Ministry of Environment.

4. Suppose a large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3
Suppose a large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the disasters has hit a hypothetical City A.

5. Would you be willing to accept the debris
in your backyard?

6. http://nonukeart. tumblr
Source: NO NUKES POSTERS Project at

7. How can the government seek
more public support?
What kinds of policies need to be implemented to address the public’s concerns and to seek their understanding?
Does Japan need to worry about a controversy at all?

8. RESEARCH APPROACH Nationwide survey (Feb. 2016) Citizens (Age: 15 -79)
N = 1200 (n = 1063)
Stratified random sampling
Vignettes (Scenarios)
Dependent variable: citizens’ willingness to support municipality’s plan to accept disaster waste from City A.
Ordered logistic regression
A large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The participant’s municipality was not affected by this disaster. However, the disaster left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times by City A, and the national government was promoting CJWT. Your municipality was planning to bury City A’s incombustible waste at a final disposal site located within a 500-meter radius of the participant’s home.”

9. HYPOTHESES Nuclear accident (-) City A is a neighbor (+)
Having been helped by City A before (+)
A large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The participant’s municipality was not affected by this disaster. However, the disaster left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times by City A, and the national government was promoting CJWT. Your municipality was planning to bury City A’s incombustible waste at a final disposal site located within a 500-meter radius of the participant’s home.”

10. City A is in a neighboring prefecture.
2 X 2 X 2 SCENARIOS
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT
CITY A: NEIGHBOR
CITY A:
HELPED
The disaster is accompanied by a nuclear accident in a certain prefecture; City A is not located in this prefecture.
City A is in a neighboring prefecture.
City A has accepted disaster debris from your municipality in the past.
The survey was combined with vignettes – vignette being defined as a “carefully constructed description of a person, object, or situation, representing a systematic combination of characteristics” (Atzmüller and Steiner, 2010: 128). They described the following hypothetical scenario: A large earthquake disaster with a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The disaster had left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times in City A, and the national government was promoting cross-jurisdictional disaster waste treatment. Besides these common statements, one or more of the following pieces of information were added, to generate eight versions of vignettes, as shown in Table 1: (1) the disaster had been accompanied by a nuclear accident, in which case debris from the prefecture where the accident had occurred was not designated for cross-jurisdictional debris treatment; (2) City A had accepted disaster debris from the participant’s municipality in the past; and (3) City A was located in an adjacent prefecture. Eight vignettes were randomly assigned to 200 target areas.
Vignettes helped to elicit survey participants’ judgments on a rare disaster situation, which was constructed as a benchmark scenario similar to the 3.11 disasters, but one that is difficult to observe in reality. Vignettes were also helpful for randomly presenting survey participants with various disaster scenarios, defined by the several variations in core information mentioned above. They also “forced” participants to imagine living near a final disposal site, which was helpful because, in reality, not all citizens sampled in a nationwide survey are likely to live near a final disposal site, or even know the location of the nearest one.

11. HYPOTHESES Nuclear accident (-) City A is a neighbor (+)
Having been helped by City A before (+)
Trust in safety (+)
Agricultural dependence (-)
Living with small children (-)
Perceived cost (-) and benefit (+)
Trust in national & municipal governments (+)
Home ownership & length of residence (-)
Knowledge of / interest in waste management (+/-)
Disaster experience (+)
Worried about future disaster (+)
A large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The participant’s municipality was not affected by this disaster. However, the disaster left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times by City A, and the national government was promoting CJWT. Your municipality was planning to bury City A’s incombustible waste at a final disposal site located within a 500-meter radius of the participant’s home.”

12. SIGNIFIANT, P >0.05 Nuclear accident (-) City A is a neighbor (+)
Having been helped by City A before (+)
Trust in safety (+)
Agricultural dependence (-)
Living with small children (-)
Perceived cost (-) and benefit (+)
Trust in national & municipal governments (+)
Home ownership & length of residence (-)
Knowing three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) (+)
Disaster experience (+)
Worried about future disaster (+)
A large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The participant’s municipality was not affected by this disaster. However, the disaster left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times by City A, and the national government was promoting CJWT. Your municipality was planning to bury City A’s incombustible waste at a final disposal site located within a 500-meter radius of the participant’s home.”

13. 1. EXPECT PUBLIC DISSENT IN FUTURE DISASTERS
“I support my municipality’s plan to accept and bury City A’s incombustible waste.”
A large earthquake disaster on a scale similar to the 3.11 disasters had hit a hypothetical City A. The participant’s municipality was not affected by this disaster. However, the disaster left debris equivalent to nine years of waste generated in ordinary times by City A, and the national government was promoting CJWT. Your municipality was planning to bury City A’s incombustible waste at a final disposal site located within a 500-meter radius of the participant’s home.”
N = 1200 (Age: 15-79)
NR: no response

14. 2. IMPROVE RISK COMMUNICATION
“I can trust in the safety of cross-jurisdictional waste treatment.”
Source: Ministry of Environment Website
“MOE posted safety standards on its websites, which required that disaster waste for recycling should contain no more than 100 Bq/kg and that ashes for disposal should contain no more than 8,000 Bq/kg of radioactive cesium, in compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s standards. In practice, stricter standards – 240 Bq/kg or 480 Bq/kg, depending on the type of incinerator – were applied to waste designated for CJWT.” (Aoki, 2017).
Enhance public trust in the safety of waste management.
Increased perceived benefits; lower perceived costs.
Reach out to those who live with small children.
N = 1200 (Age: 15-79)
NR: no response

15. 2. IMPROVE RISK COMMUNICATION
“Accepting debris from City A would cause damage or loss to me or my community.”
“Accepting debris from City A would bring benefits or gains to me or my community.”
Enhance public trust in the safety of waste management.
Increased perceived benefits; lower perceived costs.
Reach out to those who live with small children.
N = 1200 (Age: 15-79)
NR: no response
Yes 46%
Yes 11%

16. 3. EDUCATE PUBLIC ON WASTE MANAGEMENT
4. IMPROVE PUBLIC TRUST IN GOVERNMENT
“I know the Three Rs.”
“I trust the national government.”
Inform the public on how authorities safely recycle and reduce waste.
N = 1200 (Age: 15-79)
NR: no response

17. THANK YOU. Naomi AOKI, Assistant Professor
Decentralized governance involves risks associated with large devastation that can overwhelm local governments.
Inter-local collaboration is an option for mitigating such risks.
promoting inter-local collaboration can be political.
Communication and trust-building are the keys to creating an environment conducive to such collaboration.
The paper presented has been published in final form in Risk Analysis at
© N. Aoki
Naomi AOKI, Assistant Professor
National University of Singapore,