Competition uses shokuhin sampuru-style trash bentos to spotlight plastic pollution

Every year, Publicis Groupe Japan’s Sustainable Development Goals committee holds a public competition to raise awareness about environmental challenges. This year’s contest, The Trash Bento Challenge, aimed to inspire public action against microplastic contamination.

Participants were invited to collect household and neighborhood trash to create inedible bento boxes, such as using cut-up dishwashing sponges as Japanese steamed eggs or turning green candy wrappers into seaweed. Comedian and trash collector Shuichi Takizawa and fermentation master Misa Enomoto judged the entries, and the competition’s Grand Prix winner received a stay at the Zero Waste Action Hotel in Kamikatsu.

Microplastics pose a wide array of harmful effects to human health — from weight gain to cancer — and yet our growing exposure shows no signs of stopping. Humans are estimated to ingest and inhale six times more microplastics today than in 1990, with hotspots like Southeast Asia seeing consumption rates exceeding 50 times 1990 levels. And yet, scary statistics aren’t getting through to consumers grappling with apocalypse fatigue — the exhaustion of having to make endless moral choices that don’t seem to make a difference.

The Trash Bento Challenge rides on the highly popular Japanese art of shokuhin sampuru (食品サンプル), the craft of making hyper-realistic replicas of food, a staple of all Japanese F&B establishments’ window displays. By leveraging a cultural mainstay inherently connected to food, it builds awareness yet bypasses the doom and gloom narrative, instead engaging people through a creativity that’s fun and creative.