Negotiating Plastics: De-mythicizing Individual Responsibility and Plastic Materialities in Japan, from the 1940s to the 1970s

Abstract

ABSTRACT Japan is the second-largest producer of plastic waste. The government has implemented policies that encourage individual citizens to recycle and reduce plastic products to promote sustainability. This study into the history of women’s relationship with plastics de-naturalises two assumptions embedded in such environmental policies: firstly, the idea that it is the responsibility of individuals to combat the proliferation of plastics and pollution, and secondly, the notion of ‘plastics’ as a singular element to be accepted or rejected. Based on archival research of articles published in the Asahi shimbun and women’s magazines from the 1940s to the 1970s, this article chronicles changing themes in the depiction of women – plastics relationships. The history of women that emerged from the analysis shows that during this period women exercised their power collectively to negotiate the introduction of various plastic elements into the household. Women collectively determined what could be sold as a plastic product, changed the industry and shop floor practices, and influenced law and government policies regarding plastic waste disposal. The analysis reveals that such collective activities played a role in shaping a diverse history of plastics that is often lost in contemporary discourses of a single ‘plastic’ element and individual responsibility.