ENVIRONMENT-JAPAN: Use Plastic Bags, Pay a Fee

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 9 2000 (IPS) - Japanese shoppers in a Tokyo area got a surprise this month, after finding out that they were now being charged a fee for using plastic shopping bags.

The fee of 5 yen per bag began being charged in October in supermarkets in Suginami ward, a quiet residential area west of Tokyo that is the first local community to take this step.

Though it is but a local community, ward officials say their decision to clamp down on the use of plastic bags is an “urgent” step needed if Japan to is control its rising mountains of garbage.

“Some people might think the decision to charge people for shopping bags is drastic, but then, against our garbage disposal problem, this must be followed,” said an official in the city’s waste department, who declined to be named.

Thus far, the city office has just “requested” all supermarkets to charge shoppers for plastic bags starting October, but the ward office says this will soon be made mandatory.

The official says at the current rate of the use of plastic bags at shops, the extra fee will add 1.8 million yen (18,000 U.S. dollars) each year to the city’s coffers.

This is also expected to vastly reduce the city’s budget for waste disposal, which stands at 60 million yen (600,000 dollars) per year.

“Our aim is not so much to collect the extra revenue, but to in the long -term phase out the use of plastic bags,” he explained. “Our target to achieve this is projected to be by the end of two years.”

Suginami’s garbage headaches have to do with its having to burn 10 million tonnes of garbage each year to get ride of waste — and plastic is the toughest product to clear since it cannot be burned.

Likewise, a citizens’ group in the local ward, living close to a garbage incinerator in Suginami, is lobbying for action against huge amounts of waste. This, residents say, is why the incinerator spews toxic chemicals that have affected their health.

Plastic bags account for almost 10 percent of household garbage, which in turn makes up close to 50 percent of overall waste, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government.

The problem is on a bigger scale across Japan, which produces 450 million tonnes of garbage a year.

Public pressure to do something about this is also rising as a result of which Tokyo is studying a new waste-disposal bill aimed at encouraging recycling. It also presses manufacturers to produce goods that can be recycled.

The Suginami ward’s action on charging fees for using plastic bags is watched closely across Japan, where shoppers have traditionally being pampered and spoiled with elaborate wrappers and packaging as part of the service offered by the seller.

While most supermarkets in the Suginami area have already begun to follow the official recommendation on charging fees for plastic bags, there are also dissenters who argue that the ward is going a bit too far in the issue.

“I think it is up to the shopper to decide how he wants to contribute to the waste disposal problem,” says the owner of a 24- hour convenience store.

He continues to hand out six types of plastic bags for free to his customers because, he says, this is good for his business.

Indeed, among the 200 letters received by the ward office on the new regulation, opinions from people in their twenties and thirties comprised the largest group of protesters.

According to a Suginami official, these consumers say they work late and drop by convenience stores to pick up their dinner, a routine that allows them no time to go home and bring their own bags to re-use.

Japan’s busy lifestyle, consisting of long hours at work, encourages huge waste, points out Hiroshi Takatsuki, a Kyoto University professor. He says that with more young people working and caught up in work and little else, “eco-friendly lifestyles” are only moving farther away.

Indeed, the Suginami official recalled “some (of the complaining consumers) said it just was not cool to carry old plastic bags to offices, so they said they were opposed to paying a fee.”

Some say the bigger battle against waste lies in getting consumers to change their old habits.

Several attempts to recycle kitchen waste by local governments — such as producing compost for vegetable growing — have failed largely due to the heavy use of plastic containers such as bags, bottles and food containers.

Concerned residents agree that the only way the problem can be dealt with is to reduce consumption — but this is something that the Japanese government and local officials continue to resist in deference to business concerns.

In desperation, some officials have even begun to inspect hundreds of garbage bags left for collection on the streets to check whether the waste has been divided accurately into burnable and non-burnable.

A ward office in Nagoya, Japan’s third largest city, has even taken steps that require residents to divide garbage into 13 different categories in a bid to reduce waste and improve the amount that can be recycled.