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Skip the soy fish when eating sushi
From the container, the soy sauce, wasabi and ginger packets, chopsticks and other bits and pieces, a quick bite of sushi could end up with a pile of trash that’s headed for the ocean. But it doesn’t have to be like this! Here’s some things you can do to make a difference. Rethink, reuse, recycle To reduce waste we need to think through these steps in order. How can we rethink, reduce and redesign waste? How can we reuse the things we can’t avoid? As a last resort, how can we recycle that waste into something purposeful? Skip the fish & other single-use items The little soy packets are a waste and, frankly, shouldn’t exist. The biggest way you can make a difference is to skip the fish – and stop using all single-use plastic whenever possible. Re-use Switching to reusable items will make a big difference. Ask your local sushi shop if they will let you bring your own container, and take proper chopsticks. If you can eat at home or the office, use a soy sauce bottle with a small dish for saucing your sushi. If you have no choice but to use single-use plastic, try to re-use it as many times as you can. You can rinse and refill the soy fish packets by squeezing them in a shallow dish. Look for sustainable alternatives Where single-use items are unavoidable, they can be substituted for compostable alternatives, like those made from paper pulp. There are new plastic-free alternatives becoming available all the time! Recycle For anything that’s left, recycling is a last resort that can turn waste back into useful things. The little soy fish are so small that they generally can’t be recycled in domestic waste if they are loose. You can pack them in a larger container made from the same type of plastic. Many soy fish packets are made from LDPE (low-density polyethylene) which has the resin code #4, but you’ll need to check yours. If you’re unsure, don’t put them in the recycling, put them in the bin. Restaurants If you run a restaurant, reducing waste and getting rid of single-use plastics can lower costs, and benefit your brand. Ask if customers need any single-use items and how many they need Provide reusable items like eat-in serve-ware and sauce pourers Join or start a container return scheme Eliminate any excess packaging Use compostable alternatives to single-use items Offer a discount to customers using reusable items About our design We created Light Soy to highlight the big impact of small objects on ocean plastic and encourage people to quit single-use plastic. Light Soy’s recycled ocean-bound plastic shade is making a real difference in regions most affected by plastic pollution.
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The big problem with little soy sauce fish packets
The iconic soy sauce fish packets used with sushi are loved around the world for their cuteness & convenience, but they are an environmental disaster that needs to be stopped. History The containers, called shoyu-tai (soy-sauce snapper) in Japanese, were invented in the 1950s to replace glass or ceramic bottles. They became a popular way to add a squirt of soy sauce to takeaway sushi. There are hundreds of different shapes and sizes. The problem Like plastic straws and coffee cups, the packets are a big waste! They’re used for just a few moments, then tossed. They are difficult to recycle, so they end up clogging landfills and in the ocean – sadly ironic given their shape. These tiny fish are a symbol of our wasteful, single-use economy. Single-use The tiny containers hold just a few drops of soy sauce. You might use a whole handful of them just to sauce a few piece of sushi. They’re hard to refill, so best-case they go into the trash and end up in landfill, or worst case they get tossed straight on the ground and end up in the ocean. What a waste! Hard to recycle While they are made of a recyclable plastic, polyethylene, the packets are so small they cause problems with recycling machines. To go through the machines properly, they need to be put into a larger container made of the same plastic. This means they are almost never recycled. Pollution Plastics go into drains and rivers and are carried to the ocean. They drift on ocean currents, slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces until they become microscopic particles that enter our food and water supplies – polluting our bodies too. Marine Life Tragically, to birds and marine life, the packets look just like their normal food (fish!). Once ingested the plastics cause the animals to slowly and painfully starve to death. Bigger plastics can trap marine life, leaving them maimed, or slowly drowning them. All so we can have some soy sauce with our sushi. Microplastics Plastic lasts a long, long time, so packets that are used for just seconds will remain in the environment for hundreds of years exposed to sun, wind and water which break them down into microplastic particles. Microplastics have been found in our bodies, on the highest mountains, and at the deepest points of the ocean. We can do better Plastic is an amazing material – when it’s used sensibly, but so often it isn’t. We need to rethink our economy and stop waste and pollution at the source. As well as better habits, we believe that better design – of individual products and entire systems – is needed to fix plastic pollution. We need to rethink, reuse and recycle everything. Make a big difference: skip the little fish You can make a big difference simply by refusing to use single-use products, and seeking sustainable alternatives when you can't avoid them. Read more about how you can make a change About our design We created Light Soy to highlight the big impact of small objects on ocean plastic and encourage people to quit single-use plastic. Light Soy’s recycled ocean-bound plastic shade is making a real difference in regions most affected by plastic pollution.
Learn more