The term "hazardous waste" by itself is ambiguous and often different in each country. The waste management and public cleansing law in Japan defined the category of "hazardous waste" as "specially controlled waste". In this law, "specially controlled industrial waste" refers to the waste categories defined as industrial wastes which are explosive, toxic, infectious or of a nature otherwise harmful to human health and the living environment. The law stipulates that the kinds of the waste are waste oil, waste acid (pH:≦2.0), waste alkali (pH:≧ 12.5), infectious waste, waste PCB, PCB pollutants, waste asbestos, and hazardous industrial wastes which excesses the amount for the judgment criteria of heavy metals, organic chloride solvents, pesticides, and so forth.

The law also stipulates that the roles of the specially controlled industrial waste manager are as follows.
1) To grasp the discharged situation of the waste in the place of business,
2) To make the plan on reduction and other management of the waste,
3) To procure the appropriate treatment and disposal for the waste, which are, confirmation of storage conditions, selection of the contractors, implementation of proper consignment, and control of the manifest including issuing and keeping.
4) To make the report to the governor of prefecture or the mayor of municipality.

Carrying out above roles, the manager needs to have sufficient knowledge and expertise on laws. The manager should have official certifications such as selected professions, or should have practical experience of certain years depending on his/her final education (see Table). In case where these requirements could not be met, he/she must be approved to process comparable knowledge and skill.

* : Period is required on the practical experience of technical work related to waste disposal.

Japan Industrial Waste Technology Center (JW), established by the support of Ministry of the Environment, provides one day’s training course for whoever wants to be the manager from 1993. One who attained the course and passed examination is certified to have knowledge and skill required for the manager. The certificate of this program gives criteria to judge the capability of candidates in the case of item A-6 in the Table by all the government of prefectures and municipalities. The course is also participated with the managers who want to learn advanced knowledge and expertise and to develop themselves. Total participants of the course form 1993 to 2002 reached over 160,000 persons.