The company carried out on-site inspections of all its 25 plants in Japan after detecting trichlorethylene levels at 15, 600 times the permitted level at a factory in Nagoya last October.

ECONOMIST: Toxic waste in Japan

In early June, the electrical group reported illegally high levels of a carcinogen, trichlorethylene an industrial cleaning agent that is believed to cause kidney and liver damage as well as cancer in the groundwater beneath four of its domestic factories.

ECONOMIST: Toxic waste in Japan