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© 2019 AFPJapanese retailers to be required to charge for plastic bags from summer 2020
By Martin BUREAU TOKYO©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
56 Comments
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CaptDingleheimer
Our local Whole Foods (pretentious health food store in the US) gives a 10-cent discount for bringing your own bags.
The disapproving looks I get when I bring in my plastic Walmart bags to reuse for my groceries there are priceless.
therougou
No, because it isn't a tax. Charging for plastic bags is charging for plastic bags.
mmwkdw
So for Stores that are already charging for Plastic bags will this be an additional tax ?
TheLongTermer
Why don't they just ban plastic packaging, outright?
Because Taro and Yuko are so used to having their stuff bagged, and to carry home in, that its a difficult habit to change. Remember Japan is a culture of spend and classes. Their priorities come first.
This change will supposedly steer them to do it, but I suspect most will just pay the 5 yen.
I just bag it in my pack or carry it. I hate any kind of wrapping or bags.
All of these holywood elites, if they are real about global change, should bring a thermos bottle to the market and ask to put their drink in it.
Someday this may become the norm. Packaging does contribute to global pollution on a massive scale.
TheLongTermer
Sounds like a good hustle; there are "legit" hustles in Japan. They span from from reikin, shakkin, to charging to throw away any appliances that you can go later and find in a warehouse, for sale. So they collect a tax to throw it away, then recover another fee when they sell it.
Now they are charging 5 yen per bag...wonder where that 5 yen x thousands of people is going?
Not getting any 5 yen from me, stash my stuff in my bad, I hate plastic trash anyhow.
commanteer
I don't hear anybody claiming the the elimination of plastic bags will cure us of the problem forever. Where do you get that?
And it's not comparable at all to a cough suppressant, which treats the symptoms and not the disease.
This is a good start. It directly addresses the problem and helps to alleviate it. At the same time, it increases awareness that we need to deal with plastics in general. And moreover, it is workable. What would you suggest, a blanket ban on all single use plastics, effective immediately? Good luck with that.
It's a good first step. Much more needs to be done. Single use plastics need to be phased out. At the same time, we need to address the problems of developing regions of the world with no waste collection systems at all.
Svetlana Gnedkovskaia
"environmentally friendly measure
There will be no set price for a bag, with each retailer able to decide how much to charge."
People do not want you asking nothing you have to preserve yourself from any kind of idea that you are asking something. It will be all even worse. You will every where read only one kind of meaning
"selfservice". In such a situation any kind of old bag that you can bring for years somewhere you can not live without. Every morning it must come in mind at first.
Chabbawanga
Principles
Chabbawanga
Brings back memories of one of my favorite experiences in Japan. Ojiisan didnt get a bag for his cigarettes, so he got angry at the conbini staff. Finally gets a bag. Leaves the shop. Puts the bag ln the trash outside. Principals
philly1
Just in time for the Olympics. Cynics R Us suspects optics minus real change.
Open Minded
@ Farmboy
Tell me one article that is not already wrapped in 5 plastic layers from the shop (exaggerating a bit).
Open Minded
Finally!
WilliB
I agree with this. This overuse of plastic wrapping in Japan is astonishing.
TARA TAN KITAOKA
Thinking is very difficult for some people. Charge and sales drop, so not charge.....................problem too
funny.
Tokyo-gaijin
Other countries seem to manage without plastic bags plastic straws etc etc. As usual I doubt this rule has really been thought through properly.
Ah_so
Umm, no one is stopping you re-using plastic bags.
mmwkdw
We will presumably need to still put household waste into plastic bags to leave outside.... so unless that's fixed, plastic bags will continue to rule...
theFu
They did something like that in Chile last year.
There were many unintended consequences, especially for very poor people who reused the plastic bags for many different uses.
ThonTaddeo
How much will it cost to park a dioxin-emitting automobile in front of the store?
Luddite
You cannot recycle domestic plastic. The plastic bag charge is good, but the overpackaging of items really needs to be addressed.
BackpackingNepal
Even paper bags have to be banned. Those sad trees.
Chip Star
. The
Tom
I have no issues with plastic at all. I have issues with the slobs that blatantly take out their goods while walking, toss the bag on the ground and proceed to unpeel every single item in their original bag and toss it all on the ground. You should walk along the roads along the railroad tracks from Tsuruma to Yamato station on the odakyu line. Beautiful forests all trashed with garbage...and I mean garbage. Unbelievable. I confront old to young daily on my walks asking them to pick up the stuff they eagerly toss on the ground. Most get very angry at me for telling them to pick it up. I often get a chest into mine and the yaroo stuff. Shameful.
gakinotsukai
and no more plastic for wet umbrellas !!!!
this is the worst
Mahmood Hassan
A single strawberry wrapped in 5 pieces of plastic. Hmmmm…
therougou
They've been using the environment as an excuse to charge us. Now it will be the law to charge us.
kohakuebisu
fwiw, I agree with charging for bags to discourage their use, but also agree that it is eco tokenism. There are much bigger problems that get less attention.
shogun36
2020......2020........ just do it today!
rgcivilian1
Confused as I'm being charged already or did I jump out of time in the future again.
Disillusioned
@Do the hustle - While it may seem like a step in the right direction it is only a very small and somewhat insignificant step.
It is insignificant by comparison to the rest of the wasteful single use plastics packaging like, individually wrapped potatoes, bags of candies individually wrapped and many more wasteful plastic practices.
Belrick
How is this even news?
Retailers have been charging for bags for years already!
blue in green
Until you have solid, irrefutable proof, stop fobbing this off on the general public.
10% consumer tax, plus we are taxed by the city, which includes garbage removal,
but yet we are forced to pay for the plastic bags to take it away.
Now, we are forced to pay for plastic bags for purchases.
I uses a cloth bag, but I resent all this money grubbing, when there is no outright
reason for it, other than squeezing money.
Strangerland
Ever since Canada announced they would ban single-use plastics, I've noticed just how many of these I use, in ways I didn't realize. For example, the cases on my disposable contact lenses, as well as the contact lenses themselves (one-days). I applaud the move, and I think we need to move towards it as a planet, but just as the discovery of plastic made for extreme convenience, so are we going to have to accept a little less of that convenience for the sake of using less plastics.
Norman Goodman
The over-blown focus on plastic bags and straws over the ridiculous amounts of single use plastic being used, thrown away, and burned is a testament to human stupidity and gullibility. Its like taking a cough suppressant, feeling better, and immediately declaring yourself cured of colds....forever.
proxy
We should ban single use plastic feminine menstrual products. A silicon menstrual cup costs $40 and lasts for 10 years. But I want a sterile plastic bag when I go shopping to avoid the spread of O157 e-coli. Sterilizing reusable bags requires more energy than using a plastic bag and sending it to the incinerator to produce electricity.
Laguna
I'm a "my bag" type - I only gather enough plastic bags to deal with household garbage. But I agree with Do the Hustle: packaging is the biggest problem. Shop at your local greengrocer: not only do they use less plastic, you're supporting the local economy.
rainyday
I am very glad this applies to conbinis as well, they are the worst offender. Supermarkets mostly already charge for bags, but the clerks at convenience stores just automatically throw even the smallest purchase into a bag before you can tell them “No!”
ifd66
So in other words another toothless law that will have minimal impact, yet allow the govenment to say they are taking action.
Ah_so
@Do the hustle - off it is insignificant, how many single use plastic bags do you think Japan gets through a year?
Let's say it is just one a week for everyone in the country - probably a massive under estimation - that is 6.8bn a year. Is that really "insignificant"?
Aly Rustom
Japanese retailers to charge for plastic bags from 2020
Then shouldn't the headline read
Japanese retailers to charge for plastic bags from July 2020?
because when I first read it I thought that charge would come into effect in 2 months.
Now if only Japan could do the same with smoking..
Ah_so
Psychologically it is actually completely different. Offer someone a discount if they bring some bags then not many do. Charge them extra, and then they will all being their own bags.
2 Year Old
It is not the one plastic bag at the checkout that is the problem, it is the extreme amount of plastic packaging everything else comes in.
Bugle Boy of Company B
Old news.
Serrano
Aeon's been charging for bags for awhile now.
gogogo
They already have it, most supermarkets will give you 4 yen off if you bring your own bags
Do the hustle
It’s quite funny how these two paragraphs totally contradict each other and show, yet again, how Japan fiddles statistics for boasting rights. It’s also funny how they fail to mention what percentage is incinerated. Incinerating plastic is not recycling it.
Japan has a serious problem with the overuse of plastics. A bag of candies, chocolates or cookies is a good example with every one individually wrapped in plastic inside a plastic bag. Then, go into the to fruit and veges section of the supermarket to find potatoes, carrots, onions, cucumbers and many more all wrapped in individual plastic bags, which I find absolutely absurd.
it’s also interesting how convenience stores will start charging for plastic bags. The robots in the stores are trained to put every purchase in a plastic bag. You buy a pack of breathe mints and they automatically put them in a plastic bag.
Single use plastic shopping bags are only a small part of a much bigger problem of plastic addiction and overuse of plastics in Japan. Most supermarkets and many other stores already charge for plastic bags. While it may seem like a step in the right direction it is only a very small and somewhat insignificant step.
kohakuebisu
Good news. It is all retailers or just food?
"Recycling" of plastic in Japan can mean "burnt, with some heat recovered". It doesn't necessarily mean "turned into other plastic".
oldman_13
Good about time