JAPAN-ENVIRONMENT: Green-friendly Living Begins at Home

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Sep 3 1997 (IPS) - Keiko Tanaka takes a large cotton-knit bag with her whenever she goes shopping, so she does not accumulate a mountain of useless plastic bags at home.

Tanaka says this is also her way of reducing waste and helping the environment. “I took this step two years ago, when I read about the terrible seepage of dioxin into the earth and water from the burning of garbage,” she said.

Tanaka also buys her groceries from Seikyo, a consumer cooperative that sells chemical-free foodstuff and encourages recycling.

She has also gotten her daughter to wrap presents in newspaper, instead of fancy wrapping paper that is the norm here but which the 45-year-old mother believes is a wasteful practice.

Tanaka’s attitude is testimony to growing public awareness of the need for more frugal lifestyles in a first-world society, that do not harm the environment, activists say.

“While people like Tanaka are by no means the majority, she is at least a symbol of the gradual success we have had, compared to ten years ago,” said Yoko Tomiyama, head of Japan Consumer Union, one of the largest consumer organisations in Japan.

The consumer union, which groups smaller organisations around the country and gets some funding from the Tokyo metropolitan government, campaigns for various programmes toward a safer and cleaner environment.

Its recent projects include one that urges Japanese to cut back on the consumption of disposable diapers and to instead use more toilet paper made from recycled paper.

Tomiyama says one of the group’s larger aims to make the average Japanese realise that their highly convenient lifestyles may be harming not just their own environment, but that of other countries.

“In our campaigns we teach the public how our wasteful lifestyles are harming the forests of other countries, especially tropical forests in developing countries,” Tomiyama explained.

But she concedes that changing people’s attitudes and habits is a painfully slow process, since many people do not show much concern for other countries.

Still, Tomiyama says some success has been made even in the stubborn corporate world, where profits often take priority over concerns about the environment. For instance, the recycling of paper, which helps reduce timber imports, has been adopted by companies partly due to grassroots pressure.

In 1996, an average of 53.6 percent of paper produced in Japan contained recycled paper. This is compared to 65.8 percent for Britain and 58 percent for Germany, according to the Japan Paper Association.

The world’s second richest economy, Japan has a consumer spending capacity equivalent to 2,960 U.S. dollars per household per month. Economists expect personal consumption rates to increase this year by some 3.5 percent, raising alarm bells for consumer organisations and other grassroots groups.

“Despite the sluggish economy, the standard of living is high for the average Japanese who enjoys good food, beautiful clothes and invests regularly in the latest electric appliances,” Tomiyama observed.

But such lifestyles also naturally encourage more spending and in turn, the production of more waste. Disposable goods such as furniture and appliances often clog Japan’s garbage sites, a problem that is proving to be a time bomb for the government.

The government hopes that a package recycling law passed in April, which requires businesses to get involved in recycling efforts, will help push a culture of waste reduction.

Consumer groups say this law is important because it clearly outlines the responsibility of companies that produce bottles and cartons and will encourage better recycling methods.

Beyond this however, experts say there is a need to get businesses to undertake more wide-ranging, serious efforts to protect the environment.

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature has called on Japanese businesses to show leadership by establishing a council to fight global climate change and to encourage sustainable energy use.

But Tomiyama says it is very difficult to change old habits of businesses.

For instance, construction companies continue to use precious tropical timber often in a wasteful manner, and indulge in wasteful habits like throwing away cement containers after each use.

Japan has also come under fire for using other countries’ timber while preserving its own forests. Imported tropical wood from Asia is around one-fifth the price of domestically harvested wood, despite the fact that 70 percent of Japan’s land is covered with forests. This helps boosts profits for construction firms.

Meantime, criticism from consumer groups is forcing companies to look elsewhere for cheaper timber, setting their eyes on forests in the United States, Canada and Siberia. This does not help the problem of consumption of wood any, critics say.

Tomiyama says it is time to concentrate on dampening demand for such products, since business will often heed signals fron the market. “The only way to combat the fight from business is to educate the consumer,” she explained.