Single-Serve Packages in Japan
Mmm, a whopping 38 grams of hammy goodness. From Tokyo Damage Report.
Single-serving packages of food can be convenient and good for portion control, but sometimes they go too far. Tokyo Damage Report documents some examples of excessive or atypical packaging for single-serving products in Japan. Individually wrapped waffles or dorayaki don't seem that strange, but single bananas, eggs, or slices of ham are a bit questionable. [via Peter Crackenberg]
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7 Comments:
The Japanese are fanatical about--not to mention extraordinarily inventive and accomplished at--packaging. That was all well and good when the packaging materials were biodegradable (bamboo leaves, rice paper, etc.). But in an era of seabird-choking, endocrine-disrupting, bioaccumulating synthetic materials, that mania ends up being suicidal for them and murderous for the rest of us. Are they entirely to blame? Well, I don't recall ever encountering a packet of "individually wrapped, pasteurized, process JAPANESE cheese slices" at the supermarket.
Barry Foy at 10:38AM on 04/27/09
Haha, I get teased about Japanese individual packed foods by my American friends.
But we really hate to waste food, you see ;-)
Actually you have to recycle those wrappers (Japanese trash bags are transparent, and if you put something wrong they don't pick it up)--they have "plastic-recycle" mark on them.
Grocery store bags were often not free and were biodegradable last time I was back there. I always forget to separate paper-based wrappers and plastic-based wrappers, which have to be put into different recycling bins, and get yelled at.
hmw0029 at 11:05AM on 04/27/09
Trader Joe's shrink wrapped produce isn't much better!
i ran out of baking soda while baking and ran down to the closest convenience store and saw individually packaged slices of spam!
dmarina at 1:51PM on 04/27/09
@hmw0029: Making people pay for grocery bags is such an easy way to curb bag use that it makes me think, "Why don't we do that here?" I was just in Iceland and some places made us pay for bags..so we'd either not use them or use less of them. The attitude towards recycling feels so blase here (nyc at least)
@dmarina: Sounds like we need a US edition of WTF-packaging. I haven't seen individually wrapped spam!
roboppy at 2:03PM on 04/27/09
the individually wrapped cashew. that is bad. very bad.
avisualperson at 2:13PM on 04/27/09
You too can help reduce carbon emissions.
Use paper bags, and don't recycle them. Make sure they get buried as trash, not burned.
Remember, paper bags are made from trees grown on tree farms, not old growth.
Every paper bag recycled is a carbon store wasted.
peekpoke at 5:35PM on 04/27/09
Good thing we don't have any environmental issues to worry about these days, huh?
Raiders757 at 7:14PM on 04/30/09