Japan is one of my favorite places to visit for many reasons, like the food, activities, and the sceneries. This year, I went to Hokkaido with my family towards the end of the summer, and in addition to the beautiful attractions, we also saw many smart ways that Japan employs to help alleviate the harms of plastic pollution.
Volunteering opportunities:
We saw many posters of volunteering opportunities that were unique and quite eye-catching. For instance, fliers and posters gathered diving enthusiasts to organize a diving event at the bottom of Lake Shikotsu to pick up plastic. This creative way of gathering a group of people with a common interest to engage in an event that aided the environment was ingenious. I would go if I knew how to dive.
While on a hiking excursion, I asked our guide why the path we were on was so clean and had no plastics or trash on site. We were on the easier route, which he said was very popular among tourists, attracting many people each year to walk this exact path. He responded that the Japanese were really conscious about the environment, particularly the natural world around them, as they appreciated the fact that they have beautiful sceneries you can't see anywhere else in the world. He said after each touristy season they would have many opportunities for the locals to walk the path and clean up the trash. Of course, they didn't enjoy it but he said it was necessary to keep the environment clean.
When we are tourists or travelers in different parts of the world, we should always be conscious of the environment around us. We never know how much work someone else has to do just because we decided to throw our bottle cap on the floor. Some simple suggestions that our hiking guide told us were to always bring a reusable water bottle and a non-plastic bag to put your trash in.