Eco Top Trumps: Japan — Humanitarian Girl

This series of Eco Top Trumps is based on a traveller's perspective of plastic and waste. In the UK it seems more and more people are becoming aware of the effect of plastic on our planet, and many are making conscious efforts to change their lifestyles. I am by no means saying the UK is perfect, we have A LOT of work still to do! However, this mini series aims to be an interesting insight into what other areas of the world are doing in the plastic-free movement! I'll look at how easy it is to recycle, how much single use plastic gets dished out, how clean the environment is, and the impressions I get from local people. I can't speak for inhabitants of the places we visit, but from talking to locals and reading signage etc I can gauge an idea of local people's views.

General impressions

Japan has a very clean culture; the streets are immaculate, shoes are taken off in many buildings and people avoid putting their bags on the floor. On the surface you can't see an obvious environmental issue, there isn't rubbish littering the streets in plain sight. Dig a little deeper however and you start to notice the country's obsession with single use plastic.

Single use plastic - 2

Everything comes wrapped: whether it's individual bananas, chopsticks or wipes/flannels at dinner. There are vending machines around every corner that contain endless amounts of plastic bottles.

You’ll find these vending machines everywhere!

Straws are given with most drinks (thanks to Bare Kind I was happily refusing those), and though chopsticks are wooden, any other cutlery given is in plastic form! As is the case in the UK, many of the ready meals, or bento boxes as they're known here (one portion boxes traditionally filled with rice or noodles, meat or fish and veg) come in plastic packaging.

Everything we ordered came with prepackaged wipes!

Individually wrapped bananas!! As if they didn’t already have their own protective skin…

Ease of recycling - 7

Bins in Japan are a rarity. They can be found next to vending machines (with the assumption you're going to down your Fanta on the spot!) and on lots of metro platforms. When they do make an appearance they are often well sorted into sections for PET bottles, other plastics, papers and burnable rubbish.

Clean environment - 10

The streets here are very clean, with lots of planted flowers lining the street and segregated 'boxes' on the street for smoking. We often saw people sweeping outside their building in the morning, taking pride in their cleanliness. There's lots of public green spaces in the cities (even Tokyo has lots of parks amongst the high rise buildings), and the country in general is nearly 70% forest.

Local attitude - 5

I read that Japanese people are taught from a young age to be responsible for one's rubbish, so this may explain the lack of bins - many people take their litter home with them. I'm told there is an extensive system of household waste disposal, and we experienced this in lots of our hostels.

Similarly to many UK cafes we got a discount for using reusable cups in a couple of places, and we did notice the promotion of reusable cups, flasks and bottles.

One thing I really struggled with was the plastic bags: I once bought an apple that was put inside a little cellophane bag, and then placed into another plastic bag. Shop workers seemed taken a back when I refused bags (sometimes having to remove the items they'd already placed in one), or when I used my own canvas bag.

Final thoughts

Overall Japan scores highly on clean environment, with the streets being immaculate. However, it takes a huge hit on single use plastic, I was overwhelmed with the amount we saw and continually had to refuse! Their recycling system was good, though difficult to find! The impression I got from the local attitude was there was quite a way to go! All in all the total score tallied: 24/40