The studio of potter Shigeaki Higuchi faces the Pacific on the coast at Shirahama in Minami Boso City. Between the shore and his modest atelier there's only a local road and a line of bushes where deep-blue morning glories were already in full bloom when I visited last month. The sky was clear and the sea breeze there at the southern tip of the Boso Peninsula was a delight as the sun bore down on that early-summer day.
Peaceful as it is — and beautiful, with shirahama literally meaning "white beach" — this remote extremity of Chiba Prefecture is a well-known holiday destination located near Tateyama City.
But Higuchi, a Shirahama resident since 1979, knows another face of the popular beach: its garbage.