The myth of over-packaging in Japan

When I have visited Tokyo for the first time, it was only for a single day. One of the things that really surprised me was the total absence of  rubbish bins on the streets. All the packaging from the food we bought in a convenience store had no place to go! Next time I visited Tokyo, was for a short holiday two years ago. We were renting a small AirBnB apartment in Shinjuku district. It quickly became apparent that we are producing an enormous amount of rubbish. Pet bottles, plastic bags and wraps started quickly to pile up in our miniscule kitchen. I thought to myself: the amount of packaging here is ridiculous. How Japanese deal with all this rubbish on a day to day basis?

About 10 months ago we have moved to Tokyo to begin our Japanese adventure. For the first three weeks we have rented an AirBnB apartment again, and a “ridiculous amount” of rubbish production problem started all over again. We had to store rubbish bags on a tiny balcony, otherwise it was clattering the kitchen.

After we have found a long-term accommodation, we were definitely worried about managing the rubbish.  In Japan, each kind of rubbish is taken only on prescribed days of the week, not everyday. I have written about it more in our previous post on how we rented our first apartment in Tokyo. You cannot just throw things out as you produce them, you have to keep them at home and take them out in a precise moment, sorted into categories of course. The rubbish overflow fear was real!

Ten months in, I have some other feelings about the rubbish apocalypse. Here it goes:

Convenience stores

Apparently if you stop sourcing your food mainly from the convenience stores, your rubbish production plummets. Douh! Japanese people buy in a conbini one or two things on their way home, or to work. They do not feed 3-person family there, surprise, surprise. Silly me…

Plastic bags

There are options to reduce the packaging. If you do your shopping in a supermarket you can always use your own reusable bags to pack groceries in. In some supermarkets you have to pay extra for plastic bags which I guess supposed to encourage you to bring shopping bags with you.

Confectionery the Japanese way

I know what you are thinking by now: that is all fine, but what about all these sweets and crackers (Senbei) and Pocky (POCKY!) packed in a box or foil package and then in smaller packages, sometimes to the level of each individual crackers packed separately. HA! My take on this is as follows: There are two aspects. First, the climate is quite humid for at least some parts of the country. Japan is a collection of islands on the wet and moisture Pacific Ocean after all. Therefore, good packaging is appreciated for that reason. Secondly, Japanese people consume some products, especially sweets and other snacks, in a very self-controlled manner. There is no indulgence, no eating the whole pack at once, or binging. Each crackers is packed separately because it is likely that each of the crackers from a particular pack will be consumed on a separate occasion. Imagine opening a bag of crackers not packed separately to take your second serving after you opened a bag three days earlier. The whole crispness and crunchiness is just a vague memory at this point, and it is no coming back. You would just have to through your pack of blunt and  damp crackers out. So packing each snack separately makes sense to me now.

Paper bags

The last things I want to mention are paper bags used often to pack the products you buy in other stores than supermarkets. You know, the ones with proper handles, often stringy ones. These in Japan are quite durable, unreasonably durable you would think. But Japanese reuse them. It makes sense that they are durable and beautifully designed as they become an advertisement for a retailer. The customer not only carries their shopping from the store to home, but uses is also for other things later. The more durable and tastefully designed the paper bag for your store is, the more likely your customers are to carry their lunch or other belongings on many other occasions. This extends your time to market your brand, otherwise limited to the time just after the initial purchase.

To summarise, what for the westerners looks like over-packaging, may be just the right amount of packaging for consumer habits in Japan. This may be just a cultural difference. If you take into account how much food would be wasted if the packaging would be sparse, it may be reasonable approach.

What do you think about it, is over-packaging in Japan a myth or reality?