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Health and Safety Flags (Japan)

Safety and Sanitation Flags

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Safety and Sanitation Flags

One of the things that caught the interest of myself and others attending the ICV 23 in Japan were the various white-green safety flags visible at construction sites. I either saw or (on official websites) read about four kinds of these flags.
Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

Safety Flag

image by Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

The main flag that we saw was the basic "safety" flag, or Anzenki. This flag has a white field and a dark green cross in the middle. The cross is similar to what we see on the flags of the Red Cross or Switzerland. The cross has the height of 3/5's of the flag's height and the width of each arm is 1/5 of the height. The ratio is 2:3, like the national flag. (With gratitude for the kind assistance of Nozomi Kariyasu, who sent me the technical details of the Anzenki.)
Zachary Harden, 26 and 28 Jul 2009

Health Flag

image by Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

The Japan Institute of Labor mentions two other flags; the first is the "health" flag, which has the same design of the Anzenki, but with the colors reversed.
Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

Health And Safety Flag

image by Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

The second flag mentioned [by the Japan Institute of Labor] was the "health and safety" flag: a green flag with a white cross, then inside it a green cross.
Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

The "Safety and Sanitation" flag was adopted in 1965 by the Japan Central Industrial Accident Prevention Association.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 10 Mar 2012

Variants

image by Eugene Ipavec, 10 Mar 2012

In a recent news report from a Elpida Memory factory, a green flag with a white cross containing a smaller green cross. I assume is is another safety flag.
Eugene Ipavec, 10 Mar 2012

image by Eugene Ipavec, 10 March 2012

There was also a green flag with a white cross containing a smaller green cross on another staff, I assume another safety flag.
Eugene Ipavec, 10 March 2012

This is Safety and Sanitation flag adopted in 1965 by Japan Central Industrial Accident Prevention Association.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 10 March 2012

Health And Safety Flag, Railway Variant

image by Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

The third flag I saw myself, near Hakone, but it is not mentioned by the Japan Institute of Labor. It is exactly the same as the "health and safety" flag, but instead of a white cross, there is a white rectangle with two circles at the bottom. This is supposed to symbolize a train, since the flag was at a construction site for a rail line (not sure if it was a local line or a JR line). The website with the flag information is here.
Zachary Harden, 26 Jul 2009

Zero Accidents Flag

Image by Zachary Harden, 9 October 2017

Zero Accidents Flag (ゼロ災旗) was introduced by Japan Industrial Safety & Health Association. The flag is blue field charged with two people holding figure zero in white.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 02 April 2014

A catalog (pg. 74) from the Japan Industrial Safety and Health Association and it shows variants of the "Zero Accident" flag. While it is not known when the symbol was adopted, the campaign was started by JISHA in 1973 and the focus was to use every associate or member of a company, regardless of position, to be involved in preventing accidents inside and outside the workplace and act preemptively to identify and correct dangerous situations. The symbolism behind the colors is not known, with an exception for a flag with a red emblem on a white field to match the national flag.
Zachary Harden, 9 October 2017

Variants

White emblem on orange
White emblem on light-green

White emblem on blue

Images by Zachary Harden, 9 October 2017