![\"Disruptions](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/f70dc613849847121a79e4685a165eabe2bd99021228a758f0076dc8809c0198.webp\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNearby, another team preps onions with the same meticulous care before placing them in cardboard boxes for shipment. Now only select produce such as halved daikon radishes are bagged in\u00a0plastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt may sound odd, but this crunch has actually been an opportunity,\u201d says Shingo Teshima, a spokesman for Radish Boya, which is known for selling organic produce. \u201cI hope it\u2019ll be a catalyst to shift consumer behaviour. We\u2019d like to see sustainable packaging continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reversing Japan\u2019s penchant for single-use\u00a0plastic, though, will be no small task. The country ranks second in the world for per-capita\u00a0plastic\u00a0packaging waste, behind only the US, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Japan produced about 7.7 million metric tons of\u00a0plastic\u00a0waste in 2023, roughly 63 kg er person, almost half of which came from packaging and single-use containers. \u201cWith companies forced to reevaluate their packaging materials, now is the time to fundamentally reassess the use of disposable\u00a0plastics,\u201d says Prentice Koo, head of the Global\u00a0Plastics Treaty Project at Greenpeace East Asia.<\/p>\n
Environmental groups often criticise Japan\u2019s slow progress on reducing\u00a0plastic, with officials resisting mandatory caps on single-use\u00a0plastic.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s gradual approach also applies to its green transition as a whole: Although it has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the government extended the lifespan of its thermal power plants rather than setting aggressive phaseout targets for fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
As the Iran war derailed supply chains, companies unable to ditch\u00a0plastic\u00a0paid the price. Dumpling maker Gyoza no Mansyu had to suspend sales of its refrigerated gyoza dumplings in May because of a shortage of petroleum-derived packaging materials.<\/p>\n
FP Corp, Japan\u2019s top maker of supermarket food trays and takeaway bento containers, raised its prices 20 per cent in June, because of a spike in the price of materials such as polystyrene. Even after the reopening of shipping lanes, supply chains are expected to remain strained for months, leaving\u00a0plastic\u00a0prices elevated.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s obsession with packaging stems from food-safety scares in the 1950s and \u201960s, which prompted consumer groups to demand strict rules. People developed an aversion to open produce bins, with consumers preferring sealed packaging as a guarantee that their food hasn\u2019t been touched by countless strangers.<\/p>\n
During the economic boom of the \u201970s and \u201980s, such demands merged with the \u201czero defect\u201d standards of Japan\u2019s leading manufacturers including Toyota Motor and Sony Group.<\/p>\n
Blemished oranges and bruised peaches were seen as failures in quality control. The increase of single-person households has also driven sales of grab-and-go meals, which rely on\u00a0plastic\u00a0containers for easy transport.<\/p>\n
When Radish Boya first attempted to switch from\u00a0plastic\u00a0to paper or loose packaging a few years ago for environmental reasons, customer feedback was so negative that it abandoned the initiative after a few weeks, Teshima says.<\/p>\n
Some customers were concerned that the lack of\u00a0plastic\u00a0packaging would affect freshness of the produce, while others complained that loose produce was more awkward to handle. \u201cCustomers said the eco-friendly packaging was less convenient when transferring produce to refrigerators,\u201d Teshima says.<\/p>\n
Hideshige Takada, a professor of environmental studies at Rikkyo University, says cultural expectations will be difficult to change. But the government could do more to incentivize behavioral shifts, he says. \u201cPlastic\u2019s been cheap, so of course people use it. We need subsidies and government support for sustainable materials instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Government initiatives to curb\u00a0plastic\u00a0use have yielded some success. In 2020, Japan introduced a compulsory\u00a0plastic\u00a0bag charge to discourage single-use shopping bags. This resulted in a roughly 70 per cent reduction in use by 2023.<\/p>\n
The government is pushing for more\u00a0plastic\u00a0recycling, with an aim to more than double the use of recycled\u00a0plastics, to 1 million tons, by 2030 from 2023.<\/p>\n
But while the country boasts a\u00a0plastic\u00a0recycling rate of over 80 per cent, more than half of that is \u201cthermal recycling\u201d \u2014 which means burning\u00a0plastic\u00a0to generate electricity, adding to carbon dioxide emissions. At the same time, many Japanese retailers, especially in the food industry, avoid using recycled\u00a0plastic\u00a0because of stringent rules around food safety.<\/p>\n
About 60 per cent of recyclable\u00a0plastic\u00a0ends up being exported, according to the Japan-based\u00a0Plastic\u00a0Waste Management Institute. The vast majority of that is shipped\u00a0to processing hubs in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n
In the long run, Japanese consumers may have little choice but to begin using\u00a0plastic\u00a0alternatives. A global shift away from fossil fuels could mean oil refineries eventually scale down operations, decreasing the global supply of naphtha.<\/p>\n
A trade ministry advisory panel last year warned that Japan could face a\u00a0plastic\u00a0shortage as soon as 2030 unless the country scales up recycling and reins in usage.<\/p>\n
Radish Boya says it\u2019s hoping to stick to its recent changes, even after shipping returns to normal in the Middle East. Consumers, faced with recent price hikes, may now be more accepting of alternatives, Teshima says. \u201cThis time around, we hope the pricing pressure will help to change the mindset of customers.\u201d BLOOMBERG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The country ranks second in the world for per-capita\u00a0plastic\u00a0packaging waste, behind only the US FIRST-TIME visitors to Tokyo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[217,215,5916,8,214,216,11710,6613],"class_list":["post-53496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-business-of-japan","tag-esg","tag-japan","tag-japans-business","tag-japanese-business","tag-plastics","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}