Job Discussion Forums

[Black_Beer_Man]

Has anyone else here noticed Japanese people's obsession with plastic?

1. Shops (especially convenience stores) ALWAYS give you a plastic bag automatically even if you buy one small item like a donut (which is already wrapped in a plastic wrapper)

The worst is dry cleaning shops which wrap your pants in plastic and then give you a thick plastic bag to carry it home in.

2. Fruits in supermarkets (including bananas) are pre-wrapped in plastic bags. Good heavens if another customer touched the bananas before you bought them.

3. Plastic bento boxes in convenience stores by the thousands. Then, they offer to microwave them. I don't want to know if the chemicals in the plastic leech into my food thank you.

4. When you buy a package of cookies, you only get like 12 cookies and a whole lot of plastic including the tray and wrappers from the individually wrapped cookies. I know that some people would worry about Japan's humidity spoiling the cookies if they weren't individually wrapped, but that problem is easily fixed by buying an air-tight food container at a 100 yen shop.

5. Today I saw a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese at an import shop and guess what? It was wrapped in plastic. No other country wraps this product.

6. Ketchup at fast food restaurants here always have thick plastic mini-bowls to dip the fries in. Danm! Again. A Japan only plastic use. Do they really need that?

Soon a plastic monster like Godzilla will arise from Japan's plastic waste and crush Tokyo with its feet. Either that or Japanese people will experience fertility problems and higher cancer rates from the dioxins leeching out from the enormous amount of plastic waste they produce.

They seriously have to watch this video. https://youtu.be/koETnR0NgLY

[TokyoLiz]

1. At shops and grocery stores, tell the clerk you don't need a bag. The clerk will put tape on unbagged items. Grocery stores will discount your bill by a few yen. Always pack some bags with you.

2. Shoganai. You're living in the land of kirei, where sellers are obligated to protect the cleanliness of the products they sell. Sort packaging at home and follow garbage rules fanatically.

3. Don't buy bento box lunches. Make your own lunch.

4, 5 and 6, see 2.

Japan produces much less waste than many countries, and has a high rate of recycling.

If you are that bothered by the amount of waste you create, grow your own produce. The landlord at my apartment let me grow pumpkins, tomatoes etc. in the garden behind the building.

Buy from grocers, who tend to use less plastic wrapping. My local yaoyasan doesn't package anything. I can bring my own boxes for carrying home fish, eggs and pickles. The tofu shop encourages people to bring their own containers.

You could make a project of not bringing new plastic into your home for a month, and then blog about it...

[Black_Beer_Man]

[Lamarr]

[steki47]

[TokyoLiz]

The 4th R - refuse - is where you start, of course. "Rejibukuro iranai desu."

[rxk22]