As South Australia becomes the first place in the world to ban those pesky little soy sauce fish as part of a plan to reduce single-use plastics, a leading sustainability expert has issued a plea to sushi stores.
Jeff Angel, the founder of the Total Environment Centre, is calling on restaurants to offer bottled soy sauce, rather than just switching to another disposable plastic alternative.
“Any decision to produce another tiny little bit of so-called convenient plastic containing a consumable product needs to be rigorously assessed, and more than likely not done,” he told Yahoo News.
“Single-use plastic is a plague, and we have to take comprehensive action to get rid of it.”
Under South Australia’s new regulations, soft plastic squeeze packets will still be permitted. A video on TikTok with over 256,000 views shows one of these alternatives sitting in a tub that used to contain soy sauce fish.
The new sachets contain less plastic than soy sauce fish, but they remain difficult to recycle. Many people responded to the TikTok saying they weren’t impressed with the change. “It’s literally still plastic,” one wrote. “So they replaced plastic… with inconvenient plastic?” someone else added.
A video on social media highlighted that some sushi restaurants have switched from soy sauce fish to other single-use options. Source: Michael Dahlstrom/Dylan Catalano
Other sushi lovers have complained that they tend to be messy to use. “They’re so hard to open,” was one common complaint. “They’ll probably end up being a massive fail [and] they’d spill all over everyone,” someone else said.
It’s likely few will be recycled, because Australia’s soft plastic recycling scheme still hasn’t fully recovered since the supermarket-facilitated Redcycle collapsed in 2022.
Whether other states will follow South Australia remains unclear. When Yahoo News quizzed NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe on the matter last week, she said the government will have “more to say” later in the year.
‘Healthy’ snack having an impact on our health
While takeaway sushi is considered a healthy snack, the single-use plastic associated with its sale is a human health concern.
“We shouldn’t forget that plastic in the environment, which is absorbed into our bodies is generated by us,” Angel said.
When plastic enters the environment, it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, which humans absorb. In the ocean, tiny plastics are consumed by the fish that we eat. On land, it’s absorbed by plants and animals, and research published this year showed that there’s so much in the air, we’re breathing in 68,000 of these particles a day.
Along with sushi fish, straws attached to juice boxes, and cutlery attached to food containers will also be banned.
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