People from my generation aren’t buying Calbee because the bag is colorful. They’re buying it because it’s Calbee and they already know what they’re getting. The packaging could be black and white and I’d still recognize it instantly.
The only people I could see being briefly confused are younger consumers. Japanese packaging tends to be very colorful, so we’re all conditioned to identify products partly by color. But people adapt quickly. In fact, a black-and-white Calbee bag might end up standing out more on a crowded supermarket shelf than yet another brightly colored package.
There’s also a chance this ends up being a net positive. If simpler packaging lowers costs and sales stay the same, why go back? Japanese consumers are feeling inflation more than they have in decades, and companies are under pressure too. Cutting costs in a place customers barely notice seems a lot smarter than shrinking the product or raising prices again.
> Teikoku Databank has identified 52 Japanese companies using naphtha to make basic chemical products like ethylene, synthetic rubber, and PVC resin.
> The chemicals, petroleum, and coal products manufacturing sector is most vulnerable to naphtha price rises and shortages; of the 4,700 companies in this sector, 67.2% are integrated into the naphtha supply chain.
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
May be good to edit your comment to remove the first sentence.
What is even more alarming is that more than half of the Japanese public supports the Takaichi administration, which is implementing such absurd policies.
Do you have a citation for this? This sounds insane. I can't even think of any good faith motivation for doing this, other than to cover up the shortage and to keep the public pacified.
Not exactly. Japan only produces around 40% of it's naphtha domestically, with 40% from the Middle East and the other 20% from other sources. Much of the pain arose from supply shock for the 40% sources from the ME.
That said, much of the pain around naphata is transitional, as most Japanese imports of naphtha have now shifted away from the Middle East to Algeria, the US, and India [0][1].
Mind you, this is eating significantly into margins, but it is survivable as this isn't Japan's first black swan event of similar calibre - the late 2000s and early 2010s oil price shock occurred during a much more difficult macro environment for Japan.
[0] - https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/iran-tensions/iran-war/jap...
[1] - https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-marke...
This is what "globalized supply chain" looks like up close.
If that's the extent of it I'd say they're doing relatively fine. People have been taking these events like covid as some glaring warning of globalized supply chains but given that we've had like ten major supply chain shocks in half as many years I feel like the supply chains are good actually.
If you told me ten years ago that North Koreans are fighting in Europe, Russia's oil facilities are being hit by drones, Houthis are launching rockets into space and the largest trade route in the world is blocked I'd have guessed it's worse than 4% inflation and Japan's running out of printer ink
I've never seen a place throw away more plastics than in Japan.
If the current oil situation forces a reworking of this system, I'd say all in all, that's an upside.
So dressed like a lover
Frigid winter day
Rely more on statistics and less on personal observation.
The top search result for recycling claims Japan only has a 19% recycling rate to the US’s 24% [1] but you might have been referring to a specific kind of recycling?
Japan does have about half the plastic waste though yes [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_rates_by_country
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-per-capita
Japan: Approximately 28% of all passenger kilometers are traveled by rail
United States: Rail travel accounts for only about 0.25% of passenger kilometers
Remember: when you drive your 30mpg car to work, 20 miles down the freeway, alone in your vehicle by yourself, you are burning over a gallon of refined petroleum product every single day. You can make a loooooot of plastic bags with that much oil.
Something like 95% of Americans get to work via automobile.
And then that pesky "leaving it somewhere without littering"-problem. Hail mary for avoiding public waste baskets - a crow or bear could empty it, or some Arab could stow a pressure cooker in one! Oh wait... tbere's no Arabs, which is one of the absolut plusses.
The key point is that Japan recycles 85% of its plastic waste, which is excellent compared with a country like the US that recycles about 10%. And, the per capita plastic use in the US is far more than in Japan.
This whole point pops up on the internet so frequently because tourists go to Japan and see lots of individually packaged items in supermarkets and convenience stores. Yes, there is room for improvement there, but overall the situation is not as bad as many countries and probably doesn't deserve the attention it gets.