I’ve just spent 2 weeks holidaying in Japan. It is a fascinating country; one full of contradictions. Among other things I was interested to see, from a sustainability perspective, how so many people can live in such a small area.
It’s crowded; without a doubt, with over 125 million people living in an area of about 380,000 km2. The high density living of the cities seems never ending with high rise apartment buildings built on every patch of land. Once you finally emerge from the cities there are farmlands and forests. Though, I didn’t see the overeating that you see in so many western countries, I still wonder how so many people are fed.
The food must be one of the highlights. It is magnificently and artistically presented, it is fresh and vibrant and the fruit looks as if it has been on steroids. I don’t think I’ve seen such big, juicy and pink peaches before or such big, crunchy Nashi pears.
Presentation and freshness are very important in Japan.
As lovely as some of it is, I found so much of it unnecessary. I don’t want to buy individually packaged lollies, packed within another bag, then put in a third bag at sale. I don’t like the idea of buying individually wrapped bananas and cling wrapped oranges and grapefruit. Isn’t that what the skin is for?
In some cases, the fruit was put in a Styrofoam sleeve, then wrapped in plastic….
In contrast to the excessive use of plastics and packaging, the Japanese have some of the strictest recycling laws in the world. Drink vending machines, which are everywhere, often incorporate a container recycling bin. Plastics and other recyclable materials are sorted by households and businesses and are collected and recycled.
So much less energy would be expended in the initial manufacturing of these packaging materials, the wrapping process, in collecting and recycling the packaging if there was less plastic and packaging used in the first place. Also the time that it takes to individually wrap each piece of food and other item, then to sort through the packaging waste must be considerable. It’s hard to make big cultural changes, but in a country like Japan that is very conformist and compliant, it’s a wonder that this isn’t an option.