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The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

bbc.com

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Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#11

Post by rizpanjwani »

asutekku wrote: post #6

I know these Japan stories for Americans might be awe-inspiring, but man if there isn't crap loads of waste from all the products they sell here. Yesterday during my grocery shopping each individual glass container product got its own separate paper bag, meat was given a plastic bag even thought it was already wrapped in plastic and my juices got another plastic bag. Even the wines I got were given this plastic wrap,…

Yep lived in Japan 3 years - their use of over-packaging and single use plastics is insane.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#12

Post by quicklime »

asutekku wrote: post #6

I know these Japan stories for Americans might be awe-inspiring, but man if there isn't crap loads of waste from all the products they sell here. Yesterday during my grocery shopping each individual glass container product got its own separate paper bag, meat was given a plastic bag even thought it was already wrapped in plastic and my juices got another plastic bag. Even the wines I got were given this plastic wrap,…

I’ve lived in Japan too and agree that they have a lot of plastic packaging on products.

But from what I can tell they still produce far less plastic waste per capita than Americans (about half, before disposal/recycling/incineration): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-per-capita

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#13

Post by henearkr »

mc32 wrote: post #7
throw0101d wrote: post #2

See also lots of single-use plastic: * https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220823-quitting-single-...

Yeah. It’s a dichotomy. On the one hand there is more full use of foodstuffs but single use plastic is a big waste as well as housing where they prefer to demo houses and buildings rather than renovate them. Building lifespan in Japan is btwn 30 and 40 years.

Yes and discarded fish heads is not really what is killing the biodiversity right now.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#14

Post by micromacrofoot »

asutekku wrote: post #6

I know these Japan stories for Americans might be awe-inspiring, but man if there isn't crap loads of waste from all the products they sell here. Yesterday during my grocery shopping each individual glass container product got its own separate paper bag, meat was given a plastic bag even thought it was already wrapped in plastic and my juices got another plastic bag. Even the wines I got were given this plastic wrap,…

they're just as bad as americans when it comes to excess plastic packaging, but at least they separate their waste

that's it, that's the whole thing... everything else is like the rural theme park imagination of what japan is

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#15

Post by smcl »

One of the things that stood out to me last time I visited Japan was how much packaging everything has, and how few bins there are around. It is cool that there's one community that values not letting things to go waste and the story itself is very cute. But "the Japanese philosophy" regarding waste to me seemed to be: produce a lot of it, and burn it.

Europe may not be much better in producing, consuming, recycling or otherwise handling waste (and could easily be worse? I don't know how to measure this) but there's a tendency in "the west" to mysticise Japan and I don't know if it's helpful to do so in general, but particularly in this case.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#16

Post by totetsu »

smcl wrote: post #15

One of the things that stood out to me last time I visited Japan was how much packaging everything has, and how few bins there are around. It is cool that there's one community that values not letting things to go waste and the story itself is very cute. But "the Japanese philosophy" regarding waste to me seemed to be: produce a lot of it, and burn it. Europe may not be much better in producing, consuming, recycling…

Yes it drive me crazy.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#17

Post by jansan »

quicklime wrote: post #12
asutekku wrote: post #6

I know these Japan stories for Americans might be awe-inspiring, but man if there isn't crap loads of waste from all the products they sell here. Yesterday during my grocery shopping each individual glass container product got its own separate paper bag, meat was given a plastic bag even thought it was already wrapped in plastic and my juices got another plastic bag. Even the wines I got were given this plastic wrap,…

I’ve lived in Japan too and agree that they have a lot of plastic packaging on products. But from what I can tell they still produce far less plastic waste per capita than Americans (about half, before disposal/recycling/incineration): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-per-capita

How is that counted? The last time I was in Japan they still separated "burnable" and "non-burnable" waste. So if you burn the plastic, does it still count as waste?

IMO plastic is not that bad if it gets recycled or used as fuel source in power plants instead of becoming landfill.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#18

Post by lewispollard »

alanbernstein wrote: post #9
totetsu wrote: post #3

Also see this town https://www.core77.com/posts/125980/This-Japanese-Town-Sorts... .)

That's interesting, but > 12. Unrecyclable garbage that can only be landfilled: Seashells, nail polish, chemical hand warmers, ... Surely there is a better place for seashells than a landfill?

In Dwarf Fortress it's essential to get a repeating work order for shell crafts set up early to prevent shells taking up all the stockpile space, and give you some extra cash when the trading caravan rolls around.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#19

Post by m-i-l »

This is all very good, but I don't think it is specific to Japan - I'd hazard a guess that most old world cultures have a history of eliminating food waste dating back to the days when existence was much more precarious thanks to war, pestilence and famine. Thinking of Scotland for example, there's haggis (heart, liver, lungs, and originally stomach), black pudding (blood), plus all those "recipes" for leftovers like stovies and rumbledethumps. And in Europe I've seen things on menus like pigs trotters, pigs ears and so on.

Re: The Japanese philosophy for a no-waste world

#20

Post by ensignavenger »

quicklime wrote: post #12
asutekku wrote: post #6

I know these Japan stories for Americans might be awe-inspiring, but man if there isn't crap loads of waste from all the products they sell here. Yesterday during my grocery shopping each individual glass container product got its own separate paper bag, meat was given a plastic bag even thought it was already wrapped in plastic and my juices got another plastic bag. Even the wines I got were given this plastic wrap,…

I’ve lived in Japan too and agree that they have a lot of plastic packaging on products. But from what I can tell they still produce far less plastic waste per capita than Americans (about half, before disposal/recycling/incineration): https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-per-capita

Maybe we have more industrial plastic waste than Japan? My experiences in Japan are that they use many times more plastic packaging on products than we jse in the US. I find this data extremely hard to believe.
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