The environment ministry is developing uniform waste-disposal standards to say goodbye to bad rubbish disposal companies, starting in fiscal 2005.

The ministry plans to rate industrial-waste firms according to the new system and then treat the good ones preferentially.

Those who rank poorly-due to illegal or ``anti-social'' dumping practices-will eventually be culled, the ministry hopes.

A commission will come up with meaningful standards, with input from those in the industry.

``This practice will also end excuses from those that produce industrial waste and (often dodge responsibility) by saying, `We can't tell which disposal firm can be trusted,''' said the commission's chairman, Yoshinobu Kitamura, a professor at Sophia University.

Disposal firms will be requested to disclose corporate information such as financial statements and organizational charts as well as how waste is handled; this will include details such as the capacity of disposal facilities, past performance and data on dioxin emissions.

That information is to be disclosed on the Web sites of each company or on the Web site of the Japan Industrial Waste Management Foundation, an entity under the environment ministry.

Prefectural governments that issue licenses to waste-disposal companies will study the posted information and will bestow ``excellent'' ratings on firms that meet all the criteria.

Those designated as ``excellent'' will get preferential treatment, including simplified paperwork for license renewals.

The nation's yearly industrial waste amounts to about 400 million tons, with about 56,000 disposal firms nationwide dealing with it. The total amount spent on the industrial waste disposal market is estimated at more than 6 trillion yen.

The main problem is illegal dumping. About 11 million tons of industrial waste had been illegally dumped nationwide as of April 2003, according to the ministry.

Police brought criminal charges in 682 cases nationwide in 2002, according to the National Police Agency.

The waste-disposal industry and the environment ministry have been trying to find ways to eliminate illegal dumping and improve the industry's negative image.

In 2002, the environment ministry created a model to rate disposal firms and promoted the system to local governments and disposal companies.

But the ratings system has only been adopted by Iwate Prefecture, where one of the biggest illegal dumping sites in the nation has been found.

To be effective, the ratings system needed to be enforced uniformly across the nation, because industrial waste is often carried a long distance across several prefectures.

It is, in effect, nearly meaningless to cope with it on the prefectural level.(IHT/Asahi: January 7,2005)