Boom in Industry Leaves Environmental Mess in Much of Asia

An industrial boom is leaving an environmental mess in many parts of Asia. Burgeoning populations in some countries make matters even worse.

A few governments are taking steps to halt the fouling of air and water, but others are doing little, sacrificing the environment for economic development.

“There is a realization among all these countries that they’ve got problems,” said Bob Keen, principal of the Center for Environmental Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic.

But, he added, whether that realization translates into action depends on several local factors, including financial resources and political will.

The pollution problem is apparent in the region.

- In Hong Kong, which means “Fragrant Harbor” in Chinese, the stench from some of the local watercourses and harbors--polluted by industrial, agricultural and human waste--is at times unbearable.

The government has closed five beaches because of poor water quality and estimates that 45,000 people suffered infections and other illnesses last year by swimming at a popular beach on Hong Kong island’s fashionable south side. The beach remains open.

- In Taiwan, the government Environment Protection Administration rates seven of 21 main rivers as seriously polluted and describes the air of the island’s two major cities--traffic-choked Taipei and Kaohsiung--as “unhealthful.”

- A survey of 58,900 miles of rivers in mainland China found 20% polluted and 3,100 miles seriously contaminated. The government also found severe air pollution in 60 Chinese cities.

- South Korea, site of the Summer Olympics now under way, is seeing some pollution spinoff from rapid industrial development, but the problem is being recognized. A $470-million, five-year government effort to clean up Seoul’s Han River apparently has succeeded, but about 100 farmers recently demonstrated at a zinc plant in Onsan, outside Seoul, claiming that their crops were being damaged by sulfuric acid.

Keen explained that pollution control often does not receive proper attention in the early days of a nation’s economic development.

Enough Is Enough

“But as natural history develops, a critical point is reached where local residents say, ‘Look, enough. We’re not starving any longer, we won’t stand for this rubbish.’ ”

Japan was one of the first countries to reach that point as it led the region in rapid industrialization. After people began dying from toxic waste that polluted lakes, rivers and the air, the government decided to take action.

A decade later, Japan is regaining some control of its environment, although serious problems remain.

Pollution concerns appear to have moved to the forefront in the new generation of Asian economic miracles that includes Hong Kong and Taiwan.

‘Appalling Legacy’

Hong Kong’s English-language South China Morning Post said in a June editorial: “Unless urgent action is taken, it may be too late to avoid leaving an appalling legacy to future generations. Already Victoria Harbor, such a spectacular feature of Hong Kong’s tourist image, is one of the world’s filthiest stretches of water.”

Stuart Reed, head of the British colony’s Environmental Protection Department, acknowledged that “it wasn’t until about three years ago that the resolve of government began to back the work we were doing.”

Since Taiwan authorities relaxed martial law last year and allowed demonstrations, local residents frequently have taken to the streets to protest the island nation’s deteriorating environment.

The government budgeted the Taiwan-dollar equivalent of $171 million for the Environment Protection Administration this year, more than double the 1987 figure.

Given Low Priority

In less-developed nations, such as Thailand and the Philippines, environmental protection is not a major political issue and is given a low priority.

It is still not clear how much success cleanup efforts will achieve.

Corporations unenthusiastic about expensive environmental control measures continue to wield plenty of political influence.

“The government is weak and companies are strong,” Tokue Shibata, former director of Japan’s Institute of Environmental Control, said in a recent interview, voicing sentiments shared by Hong Kong’s environmentalists.

“It is . . . very difficult to prove a cause and effect with the new types of pollution,” Shibata said. “The government says it is on business’ side unless scientists have direct proof. We can’t prove it, because it takes 10 to 20 years to show up.”

Pressure From Industry

In Hong Kong, conservationists note that some anti-pollution regulations have been watered down because of pressure from industry, while others have not been rigorously enforced.

“It’s not any good just having the legislation,” said I. J. Hodgkiss of the the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Botany. “You have to go in there and do something about it.”

Here is a look at where major countries in the area stand on pollution:

JAPAN--More than 95,000 people are certified as air pollution victims eligible for compensation. Industrial-waste pollution was so serious at one time that Japanese names had to be created for a new generation of diseases.

One of them, Minamata disease, the most serious, killed more than 750 people and has been blamed on Chisso Corp., which dumped mercury into the ocean during the 1950s, contaminating fish. Two former company officials were found guilty last year of professional negligence in connection with the dumping.

HONG KONG--The Environmental Protection Department’s Stuart Reed says the colony’s main environmental problem is “too many people in too small a space”--5.7 million people living in an area about the size of Boston (population: 570,917). An

estimated 95% of all dyeing and bleaching factories have illegal sewage connections.

The government has started to take action with initiatives that include legislation to cut agricultural waste and noise pollution. Reed said annual investment in “environmental facilities” will more than double to the Hong Kong dollar equivalent of about $128 million.

TAIWAN--Nearly 20 million people clog the 13,885-square-mile island (twice the size of Hawaii with a population of 1.06 million). They ride 6 million motorcycles and drive 1.8 million cars.

The Environment Protection Administration head, Eugene Chien, maintains that Taiwan’s economic growth, which reached a robust 11% annual pace in 1987, “was achieved at the expense of our environment.”

But the public and government are beginning to react.

About 1,000 people marched through Taipei in June to protest a proposed oil refining plant for their village of Taoyuan.

The government is undertaking six long-term projects to improve the environment. One is a $1-billion, eight-year effort to clean up the malodorous Tansui River that runs by Taipei.

SOUTH KOREA--The host country of the Summer Olympics has industrialized rapidly in recent years, but has also paid an environmental price. One of the worst problems was industrial waste and sewage that polluted the Han River, which runs through Seoul, the capital.

The government committed $470 million for a five-year project that began in 1982 to clean the river, and fish and birds are now returning. The government recently ordered about 100 industrial plants and other facilities around Seoul to close down, suspend operations or take pollution-control measures.

Still, South Korean officials claim the country has no serious pollution problems and say industrial plants are taking required measures to control pollution through waste disposal treatment.

SINGAPORE--Pollution is not a political issue in the tiny city-state where a tightly run government has taken a number of steps to promote hygiene and preserve the environment.

Singapore showed impressive economic development from 1965 to 1986 without relying on heavy industry, a major source of pollution elsewhere.

The Environment Public Health Act of 1987 provides for controls on toxic waste disposal facilities and the government last year reduced the allowable lead content in gasoline.

CHINA--Economic development has been the prime concern of Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, with the focus on increasing production instead of reducing pollution. But the official media recently have placed more emphasis on pollution problems. Air pollution is as bad as that suffered by developed countries in the 1950s and 1960s, according to State Environmental Protection Bureau chief Qu Geping.

“China’s environmental protection engineering, characterized by outdated equipment and poor emission control, lags behind industrial construction development,” he wrote in the China Environmental Journal. “And this has made the country’s pollution levels go from bad to worse.”

The government and industry spent about $1.35 billion in yuan last year to fight pollution, the bureau said, but officials estimate it would take three times that just to clean up the teeming city of Shanghai.

THAILAND--River, air and noise pollution have gradually worsened in the past decade as Thailand tries to become Asia’s next economic miracle.

The National Environment Board says the nation has no systematic waste treatment because of a “negligible budget.” Waterways connected to the major Chao Phraya River that runs through Bangkok have degenerated into smelly streams. Riverside restaurants and wooden homes routinely dump garbage into the water.

PHILIPPINES--Pollution control is not a burning issue in this country struggling with other serious problems, such as poverty, political unrest and anti-government guerrilla conflict.

“No one is that concerned about pollution,” said Noel Costelo, spokesman for the Philippine Environmental Management Bureau.

Still, Manila is one of Southeast Asia’s dirtiest capitals, with thousands of squatters living in makeshift shanty communities that dump waste into canals and streams flowing into the Pasig River.

Exhaust-belching motor vehicles create an eerie, bluish glow over greater Manila, which is about the size of New York City.

The government has allocated just $850,000 for the environmental sector this fiscal year.