ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
July 1, 2019
Big plastic user Japan hopes to fight waste
PLASTIC PROBLEM. A plastic recycling
company worker sorts plastic bottles collected for
processing at Tokyo Petbottle Recycle Co., Ltd, in To-
kyo. Japan has a plastic problem. In a country where
cleanliness and neat packaging have long been con-
sidered good service, many items are sold with plastic
wrapping. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)
By Alex Barreira and Haruka Nuga
The Associated Press
OKYO — Japan has a plastic
problem.
In a country where cleanliness
and neat packaging have long been con-
sidered good service, almost everything,
from single bananas to individual pieces of
vegetables, pastries, pens, and cosmetics
is sold plastic-wrapped.
But as world leaders descended on
Osaka for the two-day G-20 summit,
Japan is attempting to become a leader in
environmental policy at the same time it
plays catch-up with countries that already
have well-defined goals in place.
In the months leading up to the G-20
summit, Japanese officials delivered full-
throated endorsements of future bans on
single-use plastics, beach cleanup efforts,
and more research into alternatives such
as bioplastics. The problem is, the
enforcement and timing of the directives
have yet to match measures already in
place in the European Union (EU) —
including sweeping legislation passed
earlier this year that will ban single-use
plastic in all member states by 2021.
Just last summer, Japan was criticized
for failing to sign the G-7 Plastics Charter,
the only country to do so besides the
United States.
At a mid-June meeting of G-20
environmental ministers in Karuizawa,
Japan brokered an agreement to begin
sharing best practices and establishing
standards for tracking marine plastic
waste, but stopped short of setting
numerical goals or a timeline for progress.
Japan is the world’s No. 2 consumer of
single-use plastic packaging per person —
the United States is No. 1 — according to a
2018 U.N. Environment Program report.
G-20 nations produce half the world’s
plastic waste, and Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, who chaired the
summit, has made fixing the problem a top
initiative, both at the summit and in
T
Japan.
But Japanese promotional efforts, such
as crafting next year’s Tokyo Olympic
medals and champion podiums from
recovered metals and plastics, have failed
to impress experts who say that Japan
cannot recycle its way out of a global
plastic waste crisis, and that the country
instead needs to focus on reducing plastic
at the earlier end of the supply chain.
“What we are asking for is the reduction
of plastic produced in the first place,” said
Mageswari Sangararalingam, a Malaysia-
based waste management expert.
There are signs that Japan is beginning
to recognize its own difficulties.
Trade
minister
Hiroshige
Seko
announced at the G-20 environment
ministers’ meeting plans for a law that will
require retailers to charge fees for plastic
shopping bags as early as next April.
Seven & i Holdings Co., the Japanese
operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores,
announced a plan in May to replace all
plastic shopping bags with paper by 2030
and all plastic packaging with paper,
biodegradable, or other reusable materials
at its nearly 21,000 stores nationwide.
Those goals are more ambitious than the
government’s 2030 target for a 25%
reduction in single-use plastic.
Selected 7-Eleven stores near Tokyo,
including one at Yokohama, have started
offering paper bags instead of plastic.
Saemi Nakamura, a customer, said the
change is welcome.
“The world is talking about the use of
plastic not being good. I think paper bags
are better,” Nakamura said.
Another convenience store chain,
Ministop, began charging 3 yen (3 cents)
per plastic shopping bag in an experiment
at two stores in Chiba, near Tokyo, which
is to be expanded to about 40 outlets by
early 2020.
But plastic shopping bags and
packaging are only a small part of the
overall plastic waste problem, experts say.
As much as 12.7 million tons of plastic
waste end up in the ocean each year, of
which up to 60,000 tons comes from Japan,
according a study cited by the country’s
Environment Ministry.
Japan is also the world’s No. 2 exporter
of plastic waste. It used to export about 1.5
million tons per year, mainly to China.
After China stopped accepting plastic
imports in 2017, several Southeast Asian
nations became new targets, but some
countries, including Malaysia and the
Philippines, are now turning the ship-
ments back. They accuse rich countries of
pushing their garbage onto poorer nations.
Officials in Japan have scrambled to
find a new home for the country’s used
plastic by establishing a 1.9 billion yen
($18 million) emergency fund over the past
two years and asking local authorities and
waste handlers to shoulder additional
loads for recycling and incineration.
Japan’s plastic waste exports last year
totalled 1 million tons, according to trade
statistics, but experts say the decline could
be linked to an increase in illegal exports
or stockpiles at garbage dumps.
“We are trying to develop more domestic
plastic recycling facilities and capabilities,
but it takes some time,” said Hiroshi Ono,
an Environment Ministry official.
At a factory on Tokyo Bay, one of more
than a dozen operated by plastic recycling
company Kyoei Industry Co., about 35 tons
of PET (polyethylene terephthalate)
bottles are processed daily. They come in
hundreds of bales, each wrapped in plastic,
and are then unravelled, sorted, pulver-
ized, heated, and minced. Next they’re
turned into fine pellets and reborn as egg
cartons, school uniforms, soccer jerseys,
and other sports equipment, as well as
PET bottles, returning to store shelves,
said company president Eiichi Furusawa.
“Even if we wanted to (export plastic
waste), no country welcomes imports
now,” Furusawa said. “We think we need
to circulate plastic domestically.”
Associated Press writer Mari Yama-
guchi contributed to this report.
Over 40% of newly elected Indian lawmakers facing charges
By Ashok Sharma
The Associated Press
EW DELHI — India’s recent national election
delivered a historic victory to Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, but
also exposed the influence of money, power, and
questionable morality on the world’s largest democracy.
Nearly 43% of the new members of the lower house of
parliament that convened in June for the first time since
the election won despite facing criminal charges. More
than a quarter of those relate to rape, murder, or
attempted murder, according to a report by the civic group
Association of Democratic Reforms.
The loophole that allows them to take office is that they
have not been convicted — in part because the Indian
legal system has a huge backlog of an estimated 30 million
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cases and trials often last decades. When asked about the
charges against them, they invariably accuse a political
rival of framing them.
Since such rivalries often lead to false accusations, the
main political parties say it would be unfair to bar people
from contesting elections unless they have been convicted
by a court.
Under existing laws, only those who have been
sentenced to prison for two years or more can be barred
from elections.
Having members of parliament with criminal
backgrounds is not a new phenomenon in India, but
despite Modi’s campaign vow in 2014 to clean up
corruption and the influence of money in politics, the
problem appears to be only growing worse.
In the 2004 national election, the percentage of
candidates with pending criminal cases was 24%, which
rose to 33% in 2009, 34% in 2014, and 43% this year, said
Shahabuddin Y. Quraishi, a former chief election
commissioner.
The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) found
that 116 of the 303 lawmakers from Modi’s Bharatiya
Janata Party elected in May face criminal charges,
including one for alleged terrorism.
Pragya Singh Thakur, who won a seat in Bhopal in
central India, is awaiting trial in connection with a 2008
explosion in Malegaon in western India that killed seven
people.
Twenty-nine of the opposition congress party’s 52
lawmakers face serious charges.
“This trend has been growing in India, leaving no
political party untouched. We need to educate voters not
to elect these people,” said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, ADR’s
founder.
“What the Indian state has been unable to provide,
strongmen promise to deliver to people in their area of
influence, using gun and money power,” said Lennin
Rasghuvanshi, a coordinator with the People’s Union for
Civil Liberties.
Starting in the 1960s and ’70s, some Indian politicians
began turning to the criminal underworld for cash to win
votes.
“In due course, the criminals started thinking that
these politicians were winning because of their money or
crimes so why shouldn’t they become lawmakers
themselves? If they are people running from the police,
they know that when they became lawmakers, the same
police will protect them,” Quraishi said.
In Uttar Pradesh state in northern Indian, former
mafia don Mukhtar Ansari has been elected to the state
assembly five times despite more than 40 criminal cases
pending against him, including murder.
Another don-turned-politician, Hari Shankar Tiwari,
also of Uttar Pradesh, has been a member of the
legislative assembly for 23 years, even winning an
election while being detained on murder charges.
During the campaign, Election Commission officials
and government agencies seized mountains of cash,
alcohol, gold and silver, saris, and expensive watches in
the offices of political parties that were intended as gifts in
exchange for votes.
The total value of the seized goods was $500 million,
including $120 million in cash — nearly three times what
was found in the 2014 general election, according to the
Election Commission.
Analysts say political parties seem to prize electability
over ethics.
“They think that people with criminal backgrounds
have more chances to win because of their money and
muscle power,” Qureshi said.
In the days of paper ballots before electronic voting
machines were introduced, gangs would use brute force to
take over polling stations to rig the vote.
One reason for the increasing number of criminal
suspects going into politics is the sheer cost of elections. In
the general election that concluded in May, political
parties and candidates are estimated to have spent about
$8.65 billion. That’s double the amount in the 2014
election, according to a report by the Center for Media
Studies in New Delhi.
The report said the Bharatiya Janata Party was the
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