WATCH THE FILMFrom Ryo Okamoto, CALMA
Cans, plastic bottles, convenience-store packaging. The remains of barbecues, lunch boxes, nappies, tyres — even refrigerators.
Every year an enormous amount of rubbish is abandoned in one of the last clear, undammed rivers in Japan.
The Rubbish Rabbit Project sets out to make the abandoning of rubbish in Japan’s rare and beautiful rivers impossible — using the force of a character and a brand.
We do collect rubbish, but that is not the point. The point is to say it out loud: don’t leave your rubbish here. Wearing the character, we take the lead and are seen fighting what has been dumped. Being seen is what plants the thought in everyone who comes to the river — you cannot leave anything here, and leaving it would be a poor look.
On the day itself, professionals teach people how to play in a river, and it ends with everyone around a feast. The character at the centre of all this is the Rubbish Rabbit.
A new way of dealing with rubbish. Come and play in nature with us.
Picking up rubbish is entertainment. Once it is cleared, the river becomes the most luxurious playground in Japan.
Jump in, let the current carry you, laugh, eat well, go home. That is what you get for the day.