Opinion on nationally produced but packaged with plastic or overseas produced but uses less plastic?

I'm not sure I'm posting in the right forum or not but i'm really struggling with plastic here in Japan. Its everywhere. Its even worse since corona. But anyway, nearly absolutely everything is packaged in plastic. I suspect it is due to the humidity here in summer to stop goods from spoiling but I produce so much plastic waste and I absolutely hate it. I found a nationally produced laundry soap packaged on paper so that was a BIG win, but my other cleaning supplies come in plastic packaging (citric acid powder, baking soda, alcohol for cleaning and the non toxic dishwasher powder).

Now I can probably get dishwasher powder from a company made in NZ. I'll need to check if it is in a cardboard box, and if so, would that be a better swap?

I can get arm & hammer baking soda but that is from the US, is that better than one made in Japan but in plastic packaging?

As for citric acid, I'd need a lot of lemons and they all come single packaged on plastic.

This is what i'm struggling with at the moment.

Then do I choose organic veg at the supermarket packaged in plastic or go for the ones without packaging (there aren't too many without packaging but there are some) but those use pesticides.

Why are all the options not ideal? 😭

Its not an option for me to grow everything myself as to get agricultural land in Japan you need to be a farmer. With some kind of certification. You also can't build a house on agricultural land. Residential land is far too expensive to grow veggies on and hence we came to the compromise of suburban plot (only 165m2/ 0.04 acres) which includes the house. That amount is a good size for Japan. If you are urban you get a balcony and that is it. Anyway I have about 30m2 to grow things and i'm going to try my best to get as much out of it as possible but we are always going to need to buy from elsewhere. I do have a great farmers box which is small farms joined into a group to provide. No big ag. All natural packaging and reusable boxes that they arrive in but again right now don't provide for all our needs. Topping up with supermarket produce is going to be part of our lives for the foreseeable future as much as I hate it. Oh I can get dried beans, fruit etc but again all comes plastic packaged. No bulk stores in my city at all.

(Edit: I probably should have put this in zerowaste forum)

First thing, the smaller the space the more productive you can make it! Why? Because you can invest more time per square meter to weed, water, fertilize, guide, layer, etc. Don't underestimate how much food you can grow in just 30m2! Or even on a balcony or a window still...

For plastic packaging vs distance, I would think it's best to go for local first. Plastic or not. Complain about the plastic to someone closer to you and the chances are bigger that they pick up on it. Anyone far away will probably just ignore your complaint. Plus if supply lines will ever fail you have at least encouraged a local supplier. That's good for redundancy.

It's not really ideal answers I have but I hope it helps you move forward a little. Let's focus on small steps forward instead of being paralyzed or slowed down because of the need for perfect answers.

Rene Nijstad wrote: It's not really ideal answers I have but I hope it helps you move forward a little. Let's focus on small steps forward instead of being paralyzed or slowed down because of the need for perfect answers.

Yes, I am very much a perfectionist and i've hated the plastic packaging for years. When I was in Tokyo I worked out a system of getting most things package free or small amount of packing but we've added another kid since then and moved to a different city with less options shopping wise. Plus we are now on the outskirts of the city. I do order in bulk online and was thinking of creating a sort of bulk storage in a closet but we have high humidity in summer and I'd worry the stuff would spoil. I was hoping to make my own soy milk and my own soy products like tofu but considering we go through a litre a day and probably 2-3 packs of tofu a week, I wonder if it sustainable to be able to do all of this plus every day chores, gardening, all the cooking etc. I also had grand ideas of buying wheat grain in bulk and milling it to make bread and pasta myself too. Its something I want to work towards in any case as the children get older and more self reliant. I just get frustrated that I can't seem to make it all happen right at once and I think I need to slow down and think of the bigger picture and build up slowly otherwise suffer from burn out.

It's a tough situation. I am constantly reminded of this scene from futurama:



It's an adjustment moving from an area with earth conscious choices being the norm to an area where everything at the town market is individually packaged in plastic. Japan seems to be a weird mix of traditions and cultural practices that happen to be earth friendly, but the priority seems to be placed on convenience and customer experience.

I try to focus on my impact overall and meeting my and my families needs. I try to remember that we are living in a transitional time and look forward to how Japan might look ten years from now. I just don't have the mental resources to research and stress over each purchase I make. Or the financial resources for that matter. And I'm getting better at cutting myself some slack about it. I believe people should do what they can, be honest with themselves about what they can do, and forgive themselves for what they can't.

Personally, I seem to prioritize distance traveled and origin of a product when there is a choice. If I have the energy, sometimes I ask the manager for unpackaged veggies or why they are all in plastic, just to kind of plant the idea of an alternative and that there is at least one consumer asking for it. A lot of people I talk with about packaging or other such impactful things agree and would even prefer the change, but even more than that, they don't want to make a fuss....

I am happy about the new law that we have to pay for all plastic bags at all checkouts.

Yes definitely happy about the bag laws but what I'd also like to see is the checkout staff not automatically stuffing your products into a billion other little tiny bags. Eugh. I always tell them its okay as it is. Soy yogurt already comes sealed and in a plastic pot whyyy do I need another plastic bag round it too?! (Side note, I want to make my own yogurt too). Same with unpackaged veggies, they quickly get stuffed in bags if I'm not watching attentively (which I'm not because I have 2 kids to keep my eye on)

Anyway yeah, I try my best! Just seems a lot working against us.

N.Y. Anzai wrote:I'm not sure I'm posting in the right forum or not but i'm really struggling with plastic here in Japan. Its everywhere. Its even worse since corona. But anyway, nearly absolutely everything is packaged in plastic. I suspect it is due to the humidity here in summer to stop goods from spoiling but I produce so much plastic waste and I absolutely hate it. I found a nationally produced laundry soap packaged on paper so that was a BIG win, but my other cleaning supplies come in plastic packaging (citric acid powder, baking soda, alcohol for cleaning and the non toxic dishwasher powder).

Now I can probably get dishwasher powder from a company made in NZ. I'll need to check if it is in a cardboard box, and if so, would that be a better swap?

I can get arm & hammer baking soda but that is from the US, is that better than one made in Japan but in plastic packaging?

As for citric acid, I'd need a lot of lemons and they all come single packaged on plastic.

This is what i'm struggling with at the moment.

Then do I choose organic veg at the supermarket packaged in plastic or go for the ones without packaging (there aren't too many without packaging but there are some) but those use pesticides.

Why are all the options not ideal? 😭

Its not an option for me to grow everything myself as to get agricultural land in Japan you need to be a farmer. With some kind of certification. You also can't build a house on agricultural land. Residential land is far too expensive to grow veggies on and hence we came to the compromise of suburban plot (only 165m2/ 0.04 acres) which includes the house. That amount is a good size for Japan. If you are urban you get a balcony and that is it. Anyway I have about 30m2 to grow things and i'm going to try my best to get as much out of it as possible but we are always going to need to buy from elsewhere. I do have a great farmers box which is small farms joined into a group to provide. No big ag. All natural packaging and reusable boxes that they arrive in but again right now don't provide for all our needs. Topping up with supermarket produce is going to be part of our lives for the foreseeable future as much as I hate it. Oh I can get dried beans, fruit etc but again all comes plastic packaged. No bulk stores in my city at all.

(Edit: I probably should have put this in zerowaste forum)

This sounds very familiar, there's no bulk places here either and you have to watch the checkout like a hawk to stop the putting every meat container and every loose veg item into a plastic bag for you. the organic rules here mean that organic veg sold where conventional veg is sold MUST be packaged. and of course plastic is the cheapest and most common option used. We also live in a damp climate and paper packages are rare, we can get sugar, salt and flour in paper and that is it. baking powder as you mention won't keep in paper and I really doubt it will travel well if you order US stuff. as soon as it gets damp it's worthless. Really the toss up is going to depend on if you can recycle the plastic or not.

With the other powders you mentioned I would try to buy as large amounts as possible that way while they are packaged in plastic per gram there is a lot less of it. I can order industrial amounts of things like citric acid online here from baking suppliers. for keeping them do you have space for something like this

You would find them down at the marina they are used a lot on boats and are completely air tight so get rid of damp issues. They are also fairly rodent resistant if that helps as well. I used to keep all my spare flour etc in one as 90% humidity soon turns it into a block of mildew.

For growing if plastic is the main concern then grow whatever comes in the most plastic. here that would be berries or herbs.

I haven't seen anything like that in Japan but I could have a look. We have a dehumidify function on our aircon and will probably run dehumidifiers so hopefully hopefully the house won't get too bad. We only just moved in so i'm not sure how bad it will be over summer yet. The problem in Japan is the such small quantities of things, much smaller than what i'm used to buying in the UK and probably definitely smaller than in the US. Like who packages only 250g of pasta. Since a serving is like 100g you need two packs for 4 people...🤦

Anyway yes! My whole garden plan is for lots of berries. The more the better! And also herbs on there too so I think i'm choosing the right things to put in there.  

We have had a few discussions here about which factor is more important (plastic packaging, transport distance, ethics, worker conditions, etc), and these choices are never clear nor easy. Without plastic from NZ- then you have shipping (diesel) plus the large-scale packaging (lots of plastic wrap on pallets within containers, for example).
I struggle with the bag thing every single time I go out, but it's exciting when I see someone else at a store using a reusable bag (we're multiplying!!! I often give them a thumbs-up). I carry my own bags for everything. Some markets let me use them, others don't. The ones that don't, I avoid as much as possible, and when I have to go there, I save their bags and use them there again, they haven't come up with a response to that yet (lots of deer-in-the-headlights looks, but... I'm used to it) and I figure I am cutting my use by 50%, 75%, depending on how many uses I get out of them.
You have to draw your own lines in the sand. Nothing is going to be a perfect option. As they say, you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, just do the best you can.
I do remember the tiny kitchen and the miserable humidity in Japan (good preparation for when I moved here to Brazil, on both counts....). Add kids into the mix and you can't do everything at once.
But that said, the kids can help, and you are training them to be careful in their use as well (it is thrilling to me when I see my daughter very naturally reuse or refuse bags.). A few years ago I bought a soymilk maker (Joyoung, bought it used on Ebay), I can buy my soy in bulk and make it every single day if I want to, and it is so easy the kids could do it as a chore. (it also works as a blender, soup and jam maker.)
You could conceivably also build making tofu into your routine as well-- I do because tofu is stupid expensive here and often not fresh, but if I were back in Japan I think it's not worth it in terms of price or quality.... I would see about investigating where you live to see if there are health-food, coop, natural etc kind of places where you can buy tofu in your own container. You might get lucky! Sendai proper apparently has a number of farmers market type things, maybe where you are does too. As you settle in surely you will find out more about what you have near you.

PS I want to say, I know this is not where you started but.... you are producing your own energy and living without a car. You are way, way ahead of me, and of many people. I toast you!

One thing we do, is we bring our own bags with us. Meaning we reuse the bags they have given us. wash them. They trick is remembering to use them when you bring them!


I imagine what you could do is buy some paper bags. give them to the cashier. And than it is put in a paper bag. Or create some cloth bags, since i see you are making textiles in the pep.

Another thing we do is we bring a box with us. The box goes into the shopping cart. and the items can be added right back into the box after they have been scanned. I find the box easier to carry than a few plastic bags.

When we do not have a box. we ask for a banana box/apple box from one of the employees. That way we avoid the need for all of the plastic. It just goes into the box.

Just suggestions which might be helpful haha!

jordan barton wrote:One thing we do, is we bring our own bags with us. Meaning we reuse the bags they have given us. wash them. They trick is remembering to use them when you bring them!


I imagine what you could do is buy some paper bags. give them to the cashier. And than it is put in a paper bag. Or create some cloth bags, since i see you are making textiles in the pep.

Another thing we do is we bring a box with us. The box goes into the shopping cart. and the items can be added right back into the box after they have been scanned. I find the box easier to carry than a few plastic bags.

When we do not have a box. we ask for a banana box/apple box from one of the employees. That way we avoid the need for all of the plastic. It just goes into the box.

Just suggestions which might be helpful haha!

In Japan what happens is you have one coloured basket you do your shopping in and then once the cashier checks it out they put it straight into another coloured basket and then you pay and take that to the tables set up for you to pack your shopping into bags. I always bring my own cloth bags but here in Japan the cashiers also like to put some food in individual plastic bags before putting into the basket🤦 usually you have to stop them but they assume everyone loves billions of individually wrapped plastic as it is more "clean and hygienic"

Anyway I do have my own cloth bags and cloth produce bags :) in fact its normal now to have your own shopping bags as the law changed recently so you have to pay for the main plastic bags. I just don't think they really understand the sentiment of banning the bags when they then wrap some food individually in plastic whilst checking out 😅 Hopefully eventually they'll ban that too.  

N.Y. Anzai wrote:Yes definitely happy about the bag laws but what I'd also like to see is the checkout staff not automatically stuffing your products into a billion other little tiny bags. Eugh. I always tell them its okay as it is. Soy yogurt already comes sealed and in a plastic pot whyyy do I need another plastic bag round it too?! (Side note, I want to make my own yogurt too). Same with unpackaged veggies, they quickly get stuffed in bags if I'm not watching attentively (which I'm not because I have 2 kids to keep my eye on)

Anyway yeah, I try my best! Just seems a lot working against us.

This is one of my pet peeves also! Some baggers seem dead set on distributing one bag's worth of groceries into 5 different bags and then even double-bagging. It's like they have some kind of contest going on to use the most bags.

We had just gotten a bag fee in place in Chicago and the baggers had stopped with all the insane over-bagging since they had to ring them up--then COVID hit and now some stores won't use cloth anymore.

N.Y. Anzai wrote:
。。。
In Japan what happens is you have one coloured basket you do your shopping in and then once the cashier checks it out they put it straight into another coloured basket and then you pay and take that to the tables set up for you to pack your shopping into bags.
。。。  

Very common in our area is "my baskets" where you buy your own shopping basket, an even different color, and give it to the cashier with your shopping that is in the store's basket. The cashier checks out your stuff and puts it directly into your "my basket" and you're done. Skip the bagging process altogether. It's nice with small kids to just leave with the basket. I didn't think about how long bagging our own stuff takes, especially when holding a fussy baby. And no more guessing if everything will fit in your bags because it's the same size basket.

It's plastic, but it will last forever or at least many years. People use them for everything and even bring them to other stores like the hardware store.

Amy Arnett wrote:

N.Y. Anzai wrote:
。。。
In Japan what happens is you have one coloured basket you do your shopping in and then once the cashier checks it out they put it straight into another coloured basket and then you pay and take that to the tables set up for you to pack your shopping into bags.
。。。  

Very common in our area is "my baskets" where you buy your own shopping basket, an even different color, and give it to the cashier with your shopping that is in the store's basket. The cashier checks out your stuff and puts it directly into your "my basket" and you're done. Skip the bagging process altogether. It's nice with small kids to just leave with the basket. I didn't think about how long bagging our own stuff takes, especially when holding a fussy baby. And no more guessing if everything will fit in your bags because it's the same size basket.

It's plastic, but it will last forever or at least many years. People use them for everything and even bring them to other stores like the hardware store.

Ooh! I wish we had that in our area. Sounds like a great idea!! Also love how they add "my" to everything haha

The best technique I've come across for long term storage without any plastics uses recycled glass jars to vacuum seal dry goods. It's bizarre to me that so few people seem to have heard about it, but it's been a complete game changer, for me at least. I made a video about it.
https://youtu.be/W79s3p-_21Q

Another consideration as weigh organic vs conventional:

the dirty dozen are foods that have large amounts of pesticides :


   Strawberries
   Spinach
   Kale
   Nectarines
   Apples
   Grapes
   Peaches
   Cherries
   Pears
   Tomatoes
   Celery
   Potatoes
   Bonus: hot peppers

And the clean 15 are foods that although not certified organic, have very few residues on them


   Avocados
   Sweet corn
   Pineapple
   Onions
   Papaya
   Sweet peas (frozen)
   Eggplant
   Asparagus
   Cauliflower
   Cantaloupe
   Broccoli
   Mushrooms
   Cabbage
   Honeydew melon
   Kiwi


do a web search for more information

I did give some thought to whether these would only apply in the USA, where I live, but I think these are probably accurate where ever they are grown,because  growing particular plants have the same challenges where ever they are grown.

So, you buy organic on the dirty dozen, and if you can't afford it, then buy the conventional "clean 15 "

Someone already covered the idea of packaging to product ratio when trying to decrease use of plastic.  

Great topic