The Need for Water Refill Stations Spark the Need for Systemic Change

New app MyMizu aims to reduce plastic waste in Japan, one drink at a time

This story discusses a new Japanese app, MyMizu, which aims to address and reduce the issue of plastic waste in Japan. MyMizu contains a map filled with various locations (such as local restaurants, stores etc.) throughout Japan that provide free water refills. Users of MyMizu have already added hundreds of water refill stations to the app and this may be an opportunity for businesses to attract customers by providing free water refill stations.  MyMizu was created in order to address an underlying systemic problem in Japan—wastefulness and consumerism. The article highlights how the lack of free water refill stations will be a huge problem with the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The millions of tourists and visitors for the Olympics will greatly contribute to the amount of plastic waste in Japan. 

Although MyMizu only addresses the issue of plastic waste that is connected to water and drinking, it still brings up the issue of excessive use of plastic in Japanese society. In 2018, Japan produced “the second-highest amount of plastic packaging per capita after the United States.” I was absolutely shocked to hear this! According to the Washington Post, “Every person in Japan uses around 300 or 400 plastic bags a year, or more than 40 billion for the entire nation.” The Washington Post also reveals that the Japanese government “boasts that 86 percent of the 9 million tons of plastic waste the country generates every year is recycled, with just 8 percent burned and the rest sent to landfills.” However, the majority of this plastic waste is thermally recycled and is “incinerated to produce heat and electricity”, and also a big chunk of this plastic waste is “exported by the private sector to poorer Asian countries”, and only about “14% is truly recycled in Japan, [and is] mostly broken down and made into new products.” 

The article brings up another important topic that has a great effect on all of Japanese society. The article mentions that “Japan doesn’t have the same level engagement in, for example, demonstrations of dissent or disagreement with how things are done, because society isn’t geared toward raising people’s voices…but if you give people an option to do things differently, they will.” Since Japan has a culture that does not necessarily encourage individuals to speak up all the time, there is not a big push for environmental activism and the majority of society trusts that the government is making the best decisions. 

Whereas in the United States, we still produce the most amount of plastic waste, but we have more environmental activism than in Japan. Also, certain states have passed legislation that requires customers to pay for plastic bags at grocery stores. This has reduced plastic waste in those states, however the United States has a lot of work to do in this sector. More and more companies in America are turning to sustainable efforts to reduce the amount of waste they produce. The problem needs to be addressed by manufacturers first because they are the ones who keep producing products made with and covered by plastic.

 MyMizu is not only providing encouragement of reusing and refilling water bottles, but also it is providing a platform for individuals within Japan to engage with sustainability.