Japan fights waste ahead of summit

In a country where cleanliness and neat packaging have long been considered good service, almost everything, from single bananas to individual pieces of vegetables, pastries, pens and cosmetics is sold plastic-wrapped.

But as world leaders descend on Osaka for the G20 summit this week, Japan will attempt to become a leader in environmental policy at the same time it plays catch-up with countries that already have well-defined goals in place.

In the months leading up to the summit, Japanese officials have delivered endorsements of future bans on single-use plastics, beach cleanup efforts and more research into alternatives such as bioplastics. The problem is, the enforcement and timing of the directives have yet to match measures already in place in the European Union - including sweeping legislation passed earlier this year that will ban single-use plastic in all member states by 2021.

Just last summer, Japan was criticized for failing to sign the G7 Plastics Charter, the only country to do so besides the United States.

At a mid-June meeting of G20 environmental ministers in Japan, brokered an agreement to begin sharing best practices and establishing standards for tracking marine plastic waste, but stopped short of setting numerical goals or a timeline.

Japan is the world's No 2 consumer of single-use plastic packaging per person - the United States is No 1 - according to a 2018 UN Environment Program report. G20 nations produce half the world's plastic waste, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will chair the summit, has made fixing the problem a top initiative, both at the summit and in Japan.

But Japanese promotional efforts, such as crafting next year's Tokyo Olympic medals and champion podiums from recovered metals and plastics, have failed to impress experts who say that Japan cannot recycle its way out of a global plastic waste crisis, and that the country instead needs to focus on reducing plastic at the earlier end of the supply chain.

"What we are asking for is the reduction of plastic produced in the first place," said Mageswari Sangararalingam, a Malaysian-based expert.

Associated Press

(China Daily 06/27/2019 page12)