Some residents in Nara Prefecture have developed a practical solution to prevent deer from injuring themselves by gorging on plastic waste found in Nara Park: shopping bags deer\u00a0can eat.<\/p>\n
Local companies are teaming up to create and promote a special, eco-friendly paper called \u201cshika gami\u201d (deer paper) that will not harm the deer, even if they ingest it.<\/p>\n
The park\u2019s deer are beloved by locals and are known internationally for their polite, graceful bows. The government has even designated them as a national natural treasure.<\/p>\n
But the deer have been swallowing plastic bags and other garbage amassing in the park, which has grown into a serious issue for the majestic creatures, leading to a number of deer deaths in recent years.<\/p>\n
Cosmetics wholesaler Hidetoshi Matsukawa, 43, in Tawaramoto is behind the new, edible product.<\/p>\n
He described the deer as \u201can important resource\u201d for the prefecture that must be preserved and treated with respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cProtecting deer means protecting the economy of Nara Prefecture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Matsukawa came up with the idea for deer-friendly paper while visiting a local souvenir shop near Todaiji temple for business talks in spring 2019. He heard from a temple official there that \u201cdeer have died after swallowing trash by mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also learned through media reports that, in one case, a mass of plastic was found lodged in a deer\u2019s stomach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should develop a kind of paper resembling \u2018shika senbei\u2019 (crackers fed to deer) to be used for packages,\u201d Matsukawa recalled thinking.<\/p>\n
Matsukawa reached out to two of his acquaintances who work in the prefecture: Takashi Nakamura, 48, who runs the paper-ware business Nakamura, located in Tawaramoto, and Kiyoshi Ogawa, 50, the head of the print and design firm Bunyodo, located in Sakurai.<\/p>\n
They spent an entire year crafting the deer-friendly material, which is made from the pulp recycled from old milk cartons and the same rice bran used for shika senbei crackers.<\/p>\n
Japan Food Research Laboratories examined the special paper for safety and determined that consuming the product poses no health hazard at least to human beings.<\/p>\n
The Nara City Tourism Association and a souvenir store around Todaiji have already adopted the edible bags for use on a trial basis.<\/p>\n
But one major hurdle to widespread adoption is the hefty price tag.<\/p>\n
While an ordinary plastic bag only costs a handful of yen (a few cents), its shika-gami counterpart is priced at about 100 yen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe costs can be lowered if the material\u2019s production increases,\u201d said Matsukawa. \u201cWe will aim to cut the price for a wider use of the material.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the price point is not the only factor at play for locals concerned about the deer.<\/p>\n
Nara Chuo Shinkin Bank, which is based in Tawaramoto and has 15 branches across the prefecture, introduced a total of 3,000 shika-gami bags at its outlets in August to support the effort.<\/p>\n
According to bank representatives, documents and other forms will be handed to customers in the special bags–even though they are located far from the deer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no deer around Tawaramoto, where we are headquartered, but we sympathized with the developers\u2019 determination to preserve deer at Nara Park,\u201d said Teruo Nakata, 63, a managing director at the bank.<\/p>\n
Matsukawa said part of the sales from the shika-gami bags will be donated to the Nara Deer Preservation Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some residents in Nara Prefecture have developed a practical solution to prevent deer from injuring themselves by gorging on plastic waste found in Nara Park: shopping bags deer\u00a0can eat. Local companies are teaming up to create and promote a special, eco-friendly paper called \u201cshika gami\u201d (deer paper) that will not harm the deer, even if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17143],"tags":[5838,10416,7105,13222,11966],"supplier":[17551],"class_list":["post-79577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recycling","tag-bioeconomy","tag-circulareconomy","tag-packaging","tag-paper","tag-plastics","supplier-japan-food-research-laboratories-jfrl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79577"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=79577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}