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August 23, 2025
 

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PLASTIC

Delegates rest outside of the assembly hall in Geneva on Friday after talks aimed at striking a landmark treaty on tackling the scourge of plastic pollution ended without a deal.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 15, 2025
'Bad actors' blamed as plastic pollution treaty talks end again without deal
Countries said they wanted further negotiations despite six rounds of talks over three years having failed to find agreement.
An Afghan woman walks next to a pile of trash full of plastic bags in Kabul.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 10, 2025
Momentum sagging at U.N. plastic pollution treaty talks
The negotiations have four working days left to strike a legally-binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.
Ecuadorian Ambassador Luis Vayas Valdivieso at the start of plastic waste treaty negotiations in Geneva on Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 9, 2025
U.N. plastic pollution treaty talks progress not 'sufficient': chair
The negotiations, which opened on Tuesday, have four days left to find consensus on a legally binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.
A chicken stands in a garbage dump filled with plastic in Rodriguez, Rizal province, the Philippines, on Nov. 28, 2024.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 7, 2025
Trump administration memo urges countries to reject plastic production caps
The U.S. stance broadly aligns with the positions laid out by the global petrochemicals industry.
Activists stage a demonstration in front of the United Nations Offices in Geneva on Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 5, 2025
Pressure from oil producers and U.S. threaten global pact on plastics pollution
Plastic production is set to triple by 2060 without intervention, choking oceans, harming human health and accelerating climate change, according to the OECD.
Some 460 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year, half of which is single-use.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 2, 2025
Efforts set to resume to reach plastic pollution pact
The coming talks follow a failure to reach a deal last December on how to stop millions of tons of plastic waste from entering the environment each year.
Items made using plastic recycled from CDs and DVDs, such as storage baskets, smartphone stands and business card holders, are sold at some Bookoff outlets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 8, 2025
Bookoff plans to step up recycling of unsold CDs and DVDs
The secondhand goods retailer disposes of 1,700 tons of discs and cases from some 800 outlets across the country each year.
A plastic bottle lies on the sand at Maccarese beach in Italy in 2018.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jun 10, 2025
Development banks to invest €3 billion in ocean plastics fight
Plastic waste entering the water could triple to up to 37 million metric tons per year by 2040, from around 11 million tons in 2021, the U.N. estimates.
Takuzo Aida, group director at the Riken Center for Emergent Matter Science, shows a sample of ocean-degradable plastic at its lab in Wako, Saitama Prefecture.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 5, 2025
Scientists in Japan develop plastic that quickly dissolves in seawater
The new material is as strong as petroleum-based plastics but breaks down into its original components when exposed to salt.
A worker sorts plastic waste for recycling at Minato Resource Recycle Center in Tokyo in 2019. Japan has been criticized by environmental groups for its strategy on plastics, which is heavily reliant on recycling instead of reduction.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 25, 2025
Are microplastics hurting our fertility?
While a lot remains unknown about how microplastics affect our health, scientists in Japan and around the world broadly agree there's an urgent need to reduce plastic production.
China slapped antidumping duties on imports of engineering plastic, including 35.5% duties on shipments from Japan.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2025
China slaps antidumping duties on plastics from U.S., EU, Japan and Taiwan
POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc and have various applications including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment.
Ocean plastic pollution is a systemic crisis that cannot be solved by a few sustainability-minded citizens recycling but requires an economy-wide solution.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 19, 2025
The true cost of ocean plastic pollution
The problem of maritime plastic-waste pollution first became apparent in the 1970s. In the half-century since then, the problem has become ever more widespread, as scientific expeditions conducted by the Tara Ocean Foundation (of which I am executive director) have shown.
The Trump administration has launched a full-scale federal "plastic patriotism" effort to eliminate paper straws, arguing they are ineffective, hazardous, more expensive and become soggy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2025
A world restored: The U.S. takes the offensive against paper straws
The Trump team has issued an executive order and a national strategy to rid the country of the pulpy, soggy mess of paper straws that torments too many of America's citizens.
The Environment Ministry plans to have recycled plastics account for at least 15% of overall plastics used in the production of new vehicle models, at a time when the European Union is looking to make using recycled plastics mandatory in vehicle production.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025
Japan aims to use 15% recycled plastics in auto production
Recycled plastics have rarely been used in vehicle production in Japan due to poor quality and insufficient supply.
A new study analyzing organs from deceased individuals found plastic particles accumulating primarily in the brain, with the highest concentrations in recent autopsies, raising concerns about long-term exposure despite unclear health effects.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2025
You might have plastic in your brain. Don’t panic — yet.
It’s unsettling, but the amount of plastic in your brain is probably less than the plastic spoon’s worth grabbing the headlines.
The Chip Mong Insee cement factory in Kampot province, Cambodia, on Jan. 9. An investigation has shown that the plastic credits sector relies heavily on the polluting cement industry to burn collected waste, despite concerns about health risks and carbon emissions.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 20, 2025
'What would you have us do?': The plastic credits problem
Credits place no obligations on buyers to stop producing or using unrecyclable plastic that ends up in the environment.
As peckish deer chase delighted tourists in Japan's temple-dotted Nara Park, a quiet but dedicated team of litter-pickers patrols the stone paths, collecting plastic waste that threatens the animals' health.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 15, 2025
New street patrol helps Nara's deer clean up their act
Garbage dropped by tourists can pose a serious risk to Nara's famous deer, but a new group is cleaning up the town.
Vehicles drive over a road made using recycled plastic waste in Pokhara, Nepal, on Dec. 26.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jan 27, 2025
Rubbish roads: Nepal explores paving with plastic
Studies show that roads paved with plastic waste can be twice as durable as normal roads.
A monuments of a plastic model of an armor worn by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, is seen in the city of Shizuoka on Dec. 6.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 6, 2025
In Shizuoka, plastic models are not just child's play
Monuments of plastic models are found throughout the city to showcase its model-making industry, which traces its roots to skilled craftsmen of the Tokugawa shogunate.
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Dec 21, 2024
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
Flowing more than 4,300 kilometers from the Tibetan Plateau to Vietnam, the Mekong River is the lifeblood of the region. It also faces a spiraling problem with plastic.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
Shoichi Takahashi holds a photo of himself when he was younger, in Otaru, Hokkaido, on May 17.
Alicia Keys closed Summer Sonic, but J-pop owned it
Summer Sonic’s 2025 lineup demonstrated its strength, showcasing the latest in J-pop, including “new kawaii” act Fruits Zipper.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.
Atsushi Kitagawara’s exhibition finds poetry in architecture
The inverted cone, one of Atsushi Kitagawara’s six signature elements in architecture, is a key feature of the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection museum building.
Candidates preparing to make final pitches for Sawamura Award
Hawks pitcher Livan Moinelo has a 1.13 ERA in 19 starts this season.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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