Plastic Pollution I - 海洋プラスチック汚染 1

One of the things you start to realise after living in Japan for a little while is that everything is wrapped and it is done rather a lot.

Plastic bags are still free in many shops.

In supermarkets, you can find fat rolls of thin plastic bags on the tables where people pack their purchases. Even clean and solid (not soggy nor soft) vegetables and fruit are packed in plastic containers or bags

Meat and fish are normally put on polystyrene foam trays and wrapped with cling film, then a cashier will "kindly" put them into another plastic bag. They treat wet stuff such as tofu in the same way.

Sweets and chocolates are wrapped individually in a tiny plastic bag in a bigger plastic bag.

Condiments and sauces such as soy sauce and vinegar are in either plastic or glass bottles with a plastic lid, which is wrapped with a thin film. The opening of the bottle sometimes even has a plastic pull-ring underneath all that already-too-much-packing.

Paper boxes containing things like gum or medicine are also wrapped in thin films. 

When you do online shopping, you cannot avoid having an enormous amount of bubble wrap, cushioning or polystyrene foam. 

You might also find your invoices in a neat plastic bag in the box.

Food from a deli would be in a plastic container in a thin plastic bag in a plastic carrying bag!!!


Are these all really necessary?
Where do these plastic packages go after being used only once?

These two videos are must-sees, I think.

The first one is: 'Ocean Plastic Pollution - Concerns over biological effectiveness' (in Japanese)
https://sciencechannel.jst.go.jp/M160001/detail/M160001004.htmlhttps://sciencechannel.jst.go.jp/M160001/detail/M160001004.html


The second is a documentary film by CNN: 'Midway, a plastic island' (in English)
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/11/30/midway-plastic-island-nick-paton-walsh-orig-jql.cnn

These films may have frightened you.
They may have made you think 'Oh my God'.
Well, it is we, humans, who keep doing frightening things, but it is we also who can change our  ways, is it not?

Much of the plastic which has been thrown away is taken to incinerators or to disposal sites, or recycled, but lots of it ends up in the sea.

When plastic reaches the sea, it is slowly broken down into small pieces called 'microplastics' after being exposed to UV rays and to the pressure from the waves, but they do not naturally decompose which means they stay in the water forever.

Microplastics are swallowed by tiny zooplanktons when they feed and the zooplanktons are consumed by other zooplanktons or bigger creatures and so on up the chain. Top consumers of the food chain, such as big fish, marine mammals and seabirds,  accumulate a lot of microplastics in their bodies. Does that mean we humans also have plastics in our bodies?   

Despite the fact that there are so many people who love seafood and who eat fish and shellfish whole in Japan, there is not much talk about plastic waste/plastic pollution and the word 'Plastic Pollution' is rarely acknowledged. There are thus very few campaigns for reducing plastic waste or educating people to be aware of the plastic pollution. Hmm... Isn't that rather problematic??