In wrap-happy Japan, cutting back on plastic bags is a tough sell

Buy lunch and a magazine at any convenience store, and you're likely to get your drink in one plastic bag, hot lunch box in another, and your magazine in yet a third.

A store clerk hands a plastic bag of goods to a customer at a Lawson convenience store in Tokyo. Facing criticism from environmentalists, the government is hoping a new law will reduce plastic waste.

The mega-packaging keeps your food hot, your drink cool and your newspaper clean, but environmentalists say it also creates a mountain of plastic waste that fouls the air, pollutes the oceans and contributes to global warming.

The world uses 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags annually, according to the advocacy Web site reusablebags.com . Wrap-happy Japan is a major player, consuming some 30 billion — about 300 for each adult every year.

These figures don't include the tons of extra wrapping — individual plastic covers for shirts from the cleaners, tiny packages for single cookies — used here, experts say, suggesting the country is among the world's premier consumers of plastic sheet.

"Japan probably uses more plastic than most societies in the world," said Hideki Nakahashi, a spokesman at the Japan Polyolefin Film Industry Trade Association.

Facing criticism from environmentalists, the government is hoping to reduce plastic use with a legal revision that lets it issue warnings to retailers that don't do enough to reduce, reuse and recycle.

The revised law was approved Friday by the Diet. But for a country famous for elaborate wrapping, cutting back will be an uphill task.

"We consider wrapping a part of the product," said Shinji Shimamura, a spokesman for the Japan Franchise Association, which represents more than 125 franchise chains.

"Of course it's good to cut down on plastic bag use," Shimamura said. "But we can't hand customers a hot lunch box or cold ice cream without a bag. That would be unhygienic and very rude."

Still, wrapping habits can border on the excessive. Some fruit stores even wrap each apple or banana in plastic. And when purchased, they all go in yet another plastic shopping bag.

The impulse to wrap may stem from traditional attitudes toward gift-giving, which is geared to presentation more than content. The layering of wrapping also has important social meaning — more wrapping means more politeness and formality.

And the bags are so cheap that shops don't have the incentive to reduce or recycle, analysts say.

Some retailers have taken the initiative on cutting back even before the revised law goes into effect in 2007.

Lawson, Inc., with almost 8,400 convenience stores and sales of more than 130 billion yen in 2005, is on a monthlong campaign urging customers to make do with fewer bags.

"We're asking people who buy only one bottled soft drink or one packet of gum whether they don't mind going without a plastic bag," said Lawson spokesman Shin Nakamura.

But a lot of people want the bag, he says.

"If it's a can of hot drink, for example, customers don't want to carry it in their hand," he said.

That convenience is bad news for the environment, says Yoshitaka Fukuoka, a professor of environmental science at Tokyo's Rissho University.

Plastic bags waste valuable oil resources and the energy it takes to produce them contributes to global warming. Some can release harmful toxins when burned, and many end up in the sea and can kill sea turtles and other marine animals that mistake them for food.

Moreover, Fukuoka says the revised law — with only a system of warnings and no legal liabilities — doesn't go far enough.

"Stores must be forced to charge for bags. That's the only way Japanese consumers can be persuaded to cut down on the plastic bags they use," Fukuoka said.

Germany, for example, saw plastic bag use fall by 70 percent after the government introduced a small levy in 2002. Similar strategies have been successful elsewhere.

The Environment Ministry, however, argues the revision is a step in the right direction.

"The law is about raising awareness and a sense of responsibility," said Yoichi Horigome, an official at the ministry's recycling policy bureau. "We expect retailers to be very cooperative."

The ministry is also suggesting more traditional and ecological alternatives to plastic. It recently launched a campaign to revive the traditional "furoshiki," a piece of fabric for carrying things by simply wrapping them.

"Japanese weren't always so wasteful," Horigome said. "We once led more environmentally friendly lifestyles. I think we can draw on that."