Plastics

As the world’s third largest economy, Japan is Asia’s biggest packaging waste producer. Due to its comprehensive waste management system, Japan ranks high in the plastic management index, but plastic reduction and reuse remain a challenge. Places like Kamikatsu, working towards a zero waste economy, show the way.

Residents of Kamikatsu, a small town in Japan, readily sort out their refuse in a long-term community programme. Can this success be replicated in other parts of Asia?

Refill, reuse, and recycle used to be the norm in Asia, where people threw little away. Life today is totally different, with plastic rubbish threatening to overwhelm the region.

Plastics have critical and irreversible effects on human health, from the extraction of the raw materials needed to create them to the disposal of end products. The ubiquity of plastics in modern life is compounding this. 

Biologically, women are more likely to be adversely affected by the toxins in plastics. Traditional roles, inequality, and a throwaway culture further amplify these harmful effects, especially in Asia.

While the call for consumers to recycle plastic waste is loudly and widely proclaimed by governments and producers, it is only part of the solution to a crisis caused by the proliferation of plastic materials and their ability to endure. What else needs to be done? 

A series of succinct articles and infographics providing an overview of the key issues behind Asia’s plastic pollution crisis.

This article series draws on the interviews with advocates and practitioners on plastic issues in Asia, mapping out challenges and solutions towards a plastic-free future.

As countries around the world scramble to contain the deadly coronavirus, detritus from disposable plastic is snowballing in Asia. Experts explain how the pandemic is exacerbating the plastic waste deluge, and what consumers and governments can do to address the situation.

Plastic is a material that used to be a symbol of progress and modernity. Now it represents an industry that subordinates everything to profit, even if the world is ruined in the process.

The first plastics imitated ivory and silk and attracted just a limited market. Things took off after World War II with the rise of PVC. Cheap plastics soon conquered the world.