｜Length : 48min ｜Year : 2022 ｜

The Seto Inland Sea is often described as a “calm, beautiful and abundant sea”. But there was a side to the Seto Inland Sea hidden from us.
“Convenient, durable and cheap”, and “Best invention of the 20th century”. That’s how plastic was described, and it became a necessary part of our daily life ever since the 1950’s. It's reported that 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced so far. Plastic takes more than 400 years to decompose, but it continues to be produced, and it is becoming a serious environmental issue.
Born and raised in Yawatahama City in Aichi prefecture, Mr. Koji Iwata (60) officially started the project of picking up marine debris in 2016. He investigated all along the Seto Inland Sea, to shed light on the situation regarding marine debris. So far, he has found over 500 locations littered with trash.
Mr. Iwata says, “By picking up plastic waste that has washed ashore by seasonal winds and currents, we can decrease the trash in the sea.”
But these locations cannot be accessed through land. It can only be accessed by boat. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this work puts one’s life on the line, because the mountain of plastic waste has created faults over the last few decades, and it’s become inhabited by vipers and centipedes. In addition to that, transporting the trash by boat is affected by fierce winds and currents.
Furthermore, each municipality is entrusted with their own methods of accepting and disposing of marine waste, so the response each time is conflicting. Even if he goes through the trouble of picking up trash, sometimes it’s not accepted for disposal.
A large-scale trash collection using boats. It is a project that almost no one has tackled before. This project will shed light on the reality of marine pollution, and the challenges the future holds.