The Minamata Bay Incident
Happened in 1950s, industrial pollution and mercury poisoning occurred in the small town of Minamata, Japan.
A local plastic company Chisso Corporation dumped about 27 tons of mercury into the Minamata Bay for more than 37 years. Since disposal of mercury costs a lot, the company simply dumped the chemicals. The mercury contaminated the water in the bay and formed highly toxic environment that the local fish intake considerable amount of mercury. Living near the bay, the residents of the town in Manamata heavily rely on fish for food. As they ingest those fish with mercury contained, people got poisoned that they became very sick. The sickness killed more than 900 people in total. The disease is called as "Itai-Itai disease". Those people with this disease come up with blindness, smell and hearing impairment, numbness, paralysis, and even death. The mercury in mother were easily inherited to the new born babies.
In 1972, the dumping of chemicals were pronounced to be illegal. However, it did not really help in solving the more serious problem, which is to stop the descending the disease and cure the patients. In the late 1950s, the patients with Itai-Itai Disease organized a "Mutual Help Society" that kept on petitioned in order to secure the right of patients and get supports. Due to its petitions, the Itai-Itai Disease got the attention from media.
Located in the inner part of Japan, not much of effects were done to the other countries. However, as the South Korea, the country that is the nearest compared to the others, were highly alerted with the chemical dumping and pollution due to mercury of the sea water. However, there was no effect onto the country that the consequences were entirely limited to Japan.
Today, the mercury waste have been significantly eradicated from the water that there is no negative consequences on human. The people from Minamata started to show their prides about the fact that they have learned to be both environmentally and ethically better than the past.
Source:
http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/minamata.htm
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/mercury/review5.php
The article is very informative but it could have been much better if you included details about the effects on other countries. In addition, this article can raise awareness of how chemical waste disposal can be extremely disastrous.
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