I recently wrote to a very special good old friend, “The contrast between Tokyo and those tiny, poor – but still so rich – islands in the South Pacific is huge.”
Now, I need to get used to Tokyo again. Tokyo is the metropolis I lived in for more than half of my life.
I will probably now, after having sailed so many miles in remote islands’ waters, I will never get used to the plastic waste – or rather the madness of plastic packaging – in Japan.
The years I have left won’t be enough for that.
While still on board in Chichi-jima, the main island of the most southern group of Japanese islands, we produced about as much plastic waste in three days as we used to in an entire month on board MaRe while sailing between the Southern Pacific islands
My OBM recently bought thinly sliced sausage. 4 slices are packed in plastic; in the shown picture, there are six slices.
Fruits and vegetables are packed in plastic. Convenience, thus waste of raw material and energy connected with environmental pollution is the driver here. It seems to me that rich countries’ people love this and the governments don’t care because they want votes.
I wrote “countries” because my daughter, cautioned me that I Holland it is the same. I wonder what I will see in Europe when I arrive there by the end of next year.
On Pohnpei, Micronesia, shop assistants where also quick with putting all in plastic bags but there we could avoid plastic by putting things in our own backpacks or shopping bags which I carried always in my backpack. There the plastic madness starts.
But I wonder even more how I personally will cope with this plastic madness in Japan and possibly in Europe.
Already in the Caribbean, I got the impression that this globe, the only one we have, will drown plastic garbage. Seeing all the trash drifting ashore there made me pretty sad.
Tokyo – I go around on by my bicycle, by busses, subways, trains, and car almost as before the departure for my looong sail, but I don’t know yet what I feel and think. I’ll see.
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