The industry ministry is supporting the development of a new plastic material that naturally decomposes in the sea as marine environmental pollution becomes ever more serious.
The move is part of efforts to achieve the government's goal of stopping the generation of marine plastic waste by 2040.
In July, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Japan pulled up a piece of plastic waste measuring 3 meters long and a meter wide in waters near Tatara Island, Nagasaki Prefecture. It took three months and ¥500,000 ($3,385) to recover the waste, in which a large number of fishing nets and ropes were entangled.
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