The government's draft measures to cut back on plastic waste — featuring a plan to make it mandatory for retailers to charge for plastic shopping bags and a 25 percent reduction in disposable plastic waste by 2030 — mark an important first step toward beefing up Japan's efforts to combat the increasingly serious problem of global plastic pollution. However, the measures still need to be fleshed out. For instance, the base year for the proposed 25 percent cut has not been specified, while the scope of retailers to be required to charge for the plastic bags, such as whether convenience stores or smaller shops will be included, is left for further discussions. The bottom line is to make sure that the proposed measures will effectively curb Japan's production and consumption of single-use plastic products.

The amount of plastic waste produced worldwide has been increasing year by year and reached 300 million tons in 2015. Disposable, single-use products such as PET bottles and shopping bags account for 47 percent of the total, according to the United Nations Environment Program. In the process of disposing of the plastic waste, at least 8 million tons are estimated to end up in oceans each year, and the danger of this plastic pollution affecting human health — by way of microplastics absorbing harmful substances and accumulating inside fish, birds and other animals as they make their way up the food chain — has been a source of growing concern.

The increasing caution over plastic pollution of oceans has prompted countries around the world — industrialized nations in Europe as well as developing economies alike — to take steps to regulate the use of single-use plastic products, such as shopping bags as well as plastic straws, forks and dishes in fast-food restaurants. But such efforts have so far been lagging in Japan, which trails only the United States in per capita volume of disposable plastic use. The draft measures presented by the Environment Ministry last month to a subcommittee of its Central Environment Council form the basis of a policy outline of the government's strategy to cut plastic waste, which it hopes to compile by the year's end, so that Japan can showcase its efforts to deal with the problem as it hosts the Group of 20 summit in Osaka next June.