The government wants to raise public awareness of the true costs of throwaway packaging
https://www.ft.com/content/5cf68c84-afeb-11ea-94fc-9a676a727e5a
Kana Inagaki July 23 2020
At the beginning of this month, I walked into a bakery with a reusable shopping bag and the best of intentions. I was ready to do my bit for the environment as Japanese stores finally began to charge a tiny fee for disposable plastic bags.
But even before I paid, it all felt rather futile. The pastries I selected were individually wrapped in plastic bags; the cashier, standing in front of a plastic curtain, wore a plastic face shield. By the time I returned home, UberEats had delivered my dumplings in a plastic lunchbox wrapped in a plastic bag.
The surge in throwaway packaging poses a challenge globally, as concerns about coronavirus transmission overrule sustainability for now. But for Japan, it is only a small extension for a culture that prizes conspicuous cleanliness. Individual green peppers and bananas are sold in neat plastic wraps in local grocery shops, gifts are elaborately covered in layers and layers of plastic, and customers expect hot coffee and a cold sandwich to be placed in two separate plastic bags.
Still, experts say that the global pandemic should not be an excuse for Japan, the world’s second-biggest producer of plastic waste per capita after the US, to put off efforts to overcome its addiction to plastics. With Japanese consumers using an estimated 30bn plastic shopping bags a year, the introduction of fees from July 1 is the first visible step — even if somewhat symbolic — towards raising public awareness of the problem.
Much bigger changes are needed as the Japanese government, which failed to sign an “ocean plastics charter” at a G7 meeting in 2018, commits itself to ensuring that all plastic packaging will be reused, recycled or composted in five years’ time. The country will also aim to cut disposal of plastic waste by 25 per cent and to recycle 60 per cent of household and industrial waste by 2030.
Participant will retrieve waste during the trash collection challenge event in Enoshima on 5 June 2019, Japan, approximately 160 participants they collected 177 kg marking World Environment Day, set by United Nation on the 5th of June every year. Under the theme of "lets clean up the city with the power of sport", teams of up to five people will compete with each other to see which can collect the most discarded trash from the surrounding public areas in Enoshima where sailing competition will be held during Tokyo 2020 Games.
What goes around. . . : a volunteer removes rubbish from the beach at Enoshima. Japan has set targets for dealing with waste, though it failed to sign up to the G7's 'ocean plastics charter' in 2018.
Faced with the risk of a backlash from younger consumers and global investors, Japanese companies have also started to outline measures to tackle plastic waste. Uniqlo clothes chain operator Fast Retailing has pledged to reduce the amount of single-use packaging at its stores by 85 per cent by the end of this year.
Suntory, the world’s third largest spirits maker, will spend nearly $500m to eliminate the use of pure petroleum-based plastic bottles by shifting to recycled or plant-derived materials by 2030. Earlier this month, the company also led the launch of a cross-industry joint venture to develop a plastic-recycling technology that will emit less carbon dioxide than existing methods.
“As for the return on our investment, we don’t know. But there is no other way to survive,” says Takeshi Niinami, chief executive. “Unless we can do it, we will lose a lot of customers in the world.” He stresses, however, that 85 per cent of plastic bottles are recycled in Japan. That compares with 41 per cent in Europe and 20 per cent in the US, according to the Council for PET [polyethylene terephthalate] Bottle Recycling, an industry group. But experts say that Japan’s focus on recycling technology as well as the public’s willingness to sort its waste rigorously for recycling have led to a false sense of security and acceptance that the use of plastics is both safe and convenient.
Some observers think Japan's expertise with recycling technology has blinded it to the environmental costs of plastic. According to the Plastic Waste Management Institute, Japan recycled 84 per cent of the 8.9m tons of plastic waste it generated in 2018. But that figure includes the 56 per cent of its plastic waste that is burned in incinerators to produce energy — a recycling method that represents a net increase in carbon dioxide emissions if the plastics are made from fossil fuels.
About 10 per cent of Japan’s plastic waste is exported to other countries, and up to 60,000 tons of plastic waste are estimated to end up in the ocean each year, according to a study cited by the Japanese environment ministry.
In addition to raising public awareness of the problem, Hideshige Takada, an expert in plastic waste at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, says the country needs to change the underlying structures that make it economical for companies to continue using plastics.
In Japan, disposal costs for plastic waste are often shouldered by municipalities, which also manage advanced recycling systems, giving companies few financial incentives to switch from plastics to other materials.
Can we break our addiction to plastic? The future of packaging Bioplastics — derived from plants — are often considered the most promising alternative but costs are still up to four times more than fossil-fuel-based polymers, which is why plant-derived plastics account for only about 1 per cent of all plastic produced annually, according to a report from Jefferies, the brokerage.
“There is also the misconception that plastics can be recycled forever,” Prof Takada adds, citing the problem of deteriorating quality through repeated recycling. Yasuhide Yajima, chief economist at NLI Research Institute, says consumers also need to be prepared to overhaul their lifestyles and pay more for environmentally friendly products if companies are to switch away from plastics.
“It’s not just about changing plastics,” he says. “It comes with the cost of people changing their values and lifestyle. Are Japanese people ready for that? Probably not yet.”