Extract from ABC News
Australian design studio Heliograf has developed a reusable biodegradable alternative to the single-use plastic soy sauce fish. (Supplied: Heliograf)
Designer Angus Ware was working in Sydney when he came across a problem.
Like millions of city workers around the world, he would grab takeaway sushi "a couple of times a week" for a quick and easy lunch.
But for all its convenience, it was a meal that came swathed in plastic.
Not only was the sushi often served in a plastic container, but the extras also came delivered in plastic.
"They'd have a little bit of plastic grass; they'd have chopsticks, often in a plastic sachet. They'd have ginger in a sachet, wasabi in a sachet," he tells Anthony Burke on ABC Radio National's By Design.
"And then of course, the little fish, which is a bottle and a cap that then separate."
Those distinctive little fish — known as shoyu-tai, which translates as "soy sauce snapper" — were developed by Japanese designer Teruo Watanabe in the 50s, part of the post-World War II plastics boom.
Ware soon began noticing sushi packaging, including the little fish and their distinctive red lids, littering the environment around him.
"[They're] really easy to drop and … you would see them everywhere," he says.
"In inner Sydney … there's a layer of single-use plastic that lines all of our streets and waterways and beaches."
The irony of fish-shaped litter despoiling the city's waterways was not lost on Ware.
"It's this natural thing that we're then chucking aside after a few seconds," he says.
Much of this plastic ends up in the ocean, where it is consumed by marine life.
"We're introducing those plastics back into our food, back into the sushi that we're eating," Ware says.
Single-use plastic shoyu-tai, or soy sauce fish, constitute a serious environmental problem. (ABC Arts: Nicola Heath)
As bans on single-use plastics roll out around the country, the pressure is on to find a functional alternative.
Fortunately, Ware has a solution: Holy Carp!, a reusable and compostable soy sauce container he and his business partner Jeffrey Simpson — who together run the Heliograf design studio — developed with the help of fellow designers Vert Design.
An eco-nightmare
Since arriving in Australia in the 80s, sushi has become one of the nation's most popular takeaway foods.
Our sushi obsession has a dark side: the more sushi we eat, the more shoyu-tai we use — and throw away.
Ware says, at a conservative estimate, between 8 and 12 billion shoyu-tai have been used since the 50s.
Plastic sachets, such as those used for ginger and wasabi, are an even larger environmental problem, with global consumption amounting to somewhere between 855 billion and 1 trillion a year.
"The world is addicted to these small single-use plastics," Ware says.
Unfortunately, recycling is not the answer to this growing problem.
"The material that they're made from can technically be recycled, but there are two problems," Ware says.
"First, they've still got some soy sauce in them, which makes them incredibly difficult to clean.
"And second, it's just not commercial to collect and recycle something of that size, especially in a mixed recycling environment. You just can't get those tiny plastics out of the waste stream and turn them into something valuable."
Ware took the problem to the studio.
"Our goal was to eliminate single-use plastic in sushi," he says.
"We looked at it from all angles."
The 'perfect design' — almost
Reinventing shoyu-tai posed an interesting design challenge.
"It's got such a positive association. When you take away the environmental aspect, they're a perfect design. They're incredibly functional. They've got great appeal," Ware says.
"We knew that we wanted to keep all of that appeal and joy that those little fish spark, but address the fact that the material is completely inappropriate for something that's used for just a few seconds."
HolyCarp! is a refillable soy sauce container made from bagasse, sugar cane fibre leftover during sugar production. (Supplied: Heliograf)
Ware went on the hunt for a material that would biodegrade in a short period of time, unlike plastic, which "lasts centuries" and adds to the accumulation of microplastics in the environment, our food and our bodies.
He landed on bagasse, a by-product of sugar production.
"It's the fibrous plant material that often was just left in fields or burned, and you can take that and pulp it up like you would paper," Ware explains.
The pulped bagasse is then blended with food-safe wax to make it resistant to liquids.
The final step is to form the material into the shape of a fish.
Ware says the design is similar to a takeaway coffee cup, with a container and a lid.
To make it work, you hold the fish upside down and give it a "light squeeze on the belly" to push drops of soy sauce out of the fish's mouth, through a tiny hole in the lid.
Angus Ware said Holy Carp! is designed to be larger than a typical plastic soy fish after he observed that many customers grab a handful rather than just one. (Supplied: Heliograf)
Ware says that while the Holy Carp! soy sauce containers are more expensive to produce than traditional plastic shoyu-tai; they are comparable in price to other non-plastic alternatives.
He is optimistic that sushi consumers will embrace the biodegradable alternative.
"People want to be good. They want to do the right thing. They want to be sustainable," he says.
"When you put those options in front of people … in a way that is intuitive, it's full of joy, and it's commercial for the businesses, it's a no-brainer."
