about us | Local Circurar Economy Network Study

Creating values that build a new human society

Creating Shared Value through the Clarification of Plastic Pollution: Networking for a Circular Economy” is an academic and practical project that aims to solve plastic pollution, a global environmental problem.

In plastic pollution, everyone is both a perpetrator and a victim. This environmental pollution is a very complex problem with effects that can extend across generations. There are also concerns about the serious effects on ecosystems, including humans. However, it is very difficult to change a society that is so heavily dependent on plastics.

Creating Shared Values for the environment at different levels – national, corporate and local – is essential to solving such complex problems.

In this research project, we will use knowledge from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences to find out how we can break free from plastic pollution. Data is collected using historical and culturally based social analysis and natural science techniques. By integrating them, we create models for economic, social and environmental sustainability. We aim to spread this model to many other regions.

Our research project is based on 3 themes.

Microplastics Research Group

The project clarifies the dynamics of microplastics of agricultural origin based on the latest methods.

In addition, we will develop a survey kit that anyone can easily use with a smartphone or tablet to establish a citizen participation method.

These methods will enable us to collect samples from a wide range of areas, improve the accuracy of analysis and integrate them with the research results accumulated so far to discover how microplastics are transported from land to river and from river to sea.

Environmental Education Group

The project will develop an environmental education programme based on citizen participation surveys. We will also identify the factors that lead to, or hinder, changes in people’s attitudes and behaviours through our practices.

We will also conduct questionnaires, interviews and a literature review on the relationships between the various stakeholders involved in solving plastic pollution.

Through these studies, we will clarify what information disconnects exist between the various stakeholders and how they can be overcome in order to achieve a sustainable economy, society and environment, and what impact the region’s unique history and culture has on this.

New Resource Circulation Creation Group

Together with local farmers and consumers, the project works to create and verify new production and distribution systems that are not dependent on plastics.

We will identify what biomass resources existed and still exist in the region. We will then consider the reasons for the excessive use of plastic materials in modern agriculture and how reduction can be achieved.

We will also work with local residents, businesses, shops and local authorities to demonstrate community composting. The project will consider what kind of framework, including social systems, needs to be established to realise a “sustainable society through material circulation within the community using de-plastics and local biomass resources.