Andrea N Ap Sot W

Slide 1: Andrea N andrea.nastase@gmail.com

Slide 2: The problem with Japanese consumers - waste •773,500 tonnes of plastic lunchbox cases a year CONVINCE CONSUMERS IN •27 billion sets of disposable JAPAN THAT chopsticks in 2007 UNPACKAGED •30.5 billion plastic shopping GOODS ARE bags a year BETTER THAN PACKAGED GOODS •Unsustainable, unnecessary •In the attempt to make everything easy and practical they’ve overlooked the consequences

Slide 4: “The giving of a gift is presenting one's feelings to the recipient. Even in daily circumstances, when offering a small item we feel as though we mustn't pass on to the recipient anything negative” “A gift is perceived as a statement from the giver to the recipient - a communication. The wrapping is considered a part of the gift itself. It should reflect the content but once removed, the gift must stand on its own.” “Despite rapid growth and social change, the Japanese never ignore their traditions “

Slide 5: “Cleanliness is Godliness.” “Japanese shoppers will not purchase a magazine if there is a fold in the cover or any inner page. They do not want to buy something that has undoubtedly been touched or handled already.” “It is fascinating for foreigners to watch the Japanese eat fast food such as hamburgers. They almost always use paper wraps that are designed to keep the servers' and the users' fingers completely off of the food.” “Many companies simply give up on trying to export packaged products to the Japanese market .”

Slide 6: • japanese people take a hot bath every night, some do not have showers installed in their bathrooms. • mcdonalds employees will run outside to give you your drive-thru order. • it is impolite to tear the wrapping paper off of a gift. • most vending machines in the world. • it is not uncommon to pay $2 for a single apple. • “who cares, it’s japan! anything goes.”

Slide 7: 1. They’re trying to be green (organic stores etc.) but they’re still doing it wrong while they obviously think it’s right 2. Every wrapping has to be attractive to differentiate itself; 3. It’s unlikely that their habits will change over night - taking away all packaging will cause distress; 4. Disrupting them would cause a disharmony in one of the most important life- philosophy elements, the ‘wa’; 5. Design really has to be smart, let alone packaging; 6. They wrap everything so it’s clean and untouched by human hands; 7. Everything has to be convenient and time-efficient except at home;

Slide 8: Most waste comes from snacks and snack packaging – it would then make sense to bring back the popularity of home-prepared bento as opposed to the one you can buy. It’s a massive time and space saver to have a ready- made bento at lunch time instead of having to go through the trouble of buying one and it challenges craftiness and originality as well as producers to make reusable boxes and interesting designs Even though it’s supposed to stand out on its own, there are still many uses for the The same cloth used for cloth bento wrapping – it serves packaging could be used in many ways – as both a napkin and ‘bridge’ Japanese are huge fans of labels and the between any dirty medium and feeling of ‘belonging’. If stores supplied the bento box and most reusable cloth packaging instead of plastic importantly can be reused. bags for shopping it would reduce a lot of It’s not (yet) seen as a cool thing. the waste generated by these.

Slide 9: Similar to the bobbing for apples idea, knowing that the product you picked up is fresh and hasn’t been touched by human hands is vital to Japanese consumers – going into a supermarket and picking up your own fresh fruit or vegetables can reduce a lot of the already If they don’t want existing packaging . Not only is it anyone touching their stuff, it clean but you only use the actual would be useful and exciting to let amount of packaging you need. them get it themselves. A lot of Some forms of packaging are ‘western’ habits have some ludicrous, i.e. double wrapping element of ‘cleanliness’ to them peelable objects in order to so instead of causing distress by protect them from weather (like forcing no packaging, the idea humid summers) or just to make should be part of the them look good; environment, work for them and not have them work for it – the Most consumers can’t think of concept of waiting or slowness products without packaging – can’t be tolerated but it can be leave a crate of bananas lying reduced by introducing different around on seats in a train station kinds of ‘self-service’ stores. and someone, somewhere is In the race to bound to pick one up and eat it, innovate, most companies forgot making the packaging look a bit what people really need – utility. redundant.

Slide 10: “invention is to create something new. innovation is to create something new that makes money” •Convincing Japanese consumers to use less packaging would take a lot of time and effort as it’s hard to talk them out of a stubbornly-held conviction that everything has to be clean; in an insular country where even the basic products come from the sea, they’re all regarded as ‘fresh’ and anything else will be quickly disposed of. •There is no real ‘recipe for success’ but considering centuries ago no one ate rice as it was considered sacred gives everything else hope; the change came from a need as well as the need to package gifts in an intricate way. •Japan is known for a lot of concept stores – shops that only sell trendy items, pink items, items popular in ‘the west’ and so and so on. They’re not familiar with the concept of reusing or refilling drinks but buying new ones; having places where you pay a given price for a glass and can then refill it as many times as you like, returning it at the end and getting your money back or keeping it (similar to beer festivals in the UK) can teach consumers a lot about reusing.

Slide 11: • It would be impossible to say the change is going to happen over night or that just one brand or product will change a whole lifestyle or preconceived idea; • There is no short-term solution that will just ‘work’ – children are taught early in school to observe labels and packaging carefully so it has a lot to do with education, school and society ; the government would play a huge part in educating people as well. • Nothing will convince people in an instant – they have to try and see things for themselves, by borrowing habits from their tourists and blending them with their own traditions. • The brand obsession is an important aspect as well as things being aesthetically pleasing to the eye – shopping bags and carriers, compartments and spacing are a good place to start. Individual packaging comes from the need to have ‘a bit of everything’ whereas a bit of everything can easily be packaged and sold as a ready-made mix and match product. • Other society factors might play a part too, a bit of aggressiveness always shapes things in different ways. • We’re not trying to say packaging is evil and should be killed with fire but to show them you can live without most of it, working towards removing it completely when it comes to groceries and snacks.