Harukigawa: Japan's worst river

NHK has a fun show with the tema Worst!

Until recently, the worst river in Japan was Harukigawa in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo. Many homes have no plumbing for kitchen waste or laundry, and unless cooking oil is kept out of the sink and detergent use reduced, it all goes straight into the river - and further downriver into Tokyo Bay.

Rivers are measured according to a pollution scale and clearly, something had to be done about this issue. Now, people say the water is no longer black but becoming bluish. After a local campaign, it now ranks third, having reduced the pollution index from 14.0 to 11.4 BOD which is not great, but a lot better than a year ago.

The average BOD in river water in Japan was reduced from 3.3 in 1979 to 1.6 in 2003, so Harukigawa still has a long way to go.

How to get ordinary people to care about the environment? One of the campaigners went around to households, talked to them, and got about 15,000 people to pledge to reduce their kitchen water pollution through some simple steps. Those who participated put up a banner with a green frog, looking rather unwell, and information about the need to clean up the river. Professional sludge experts were then hired to remove some 70 cm of yucky goo from the bottom. Many bloggers have also participated, for example check here and here. And now, it seems some birds are returning as well as small fish. A nice success for "Spring Tree River".