12 billion plastic sushi fish later, is it time for a sustainable soy sauce option?

Single-use plastic soy sauce fish are an eco-nightmare. A local designer has a solutionBy Nicola HeathABC ArtsTopic:Design1h ago1 hours agoTue 28 Apr 2026 at 2:26amAustralian design studio Heliograf has developed a reusable biodegradable alternative to the single-use plastic soy sauce fish. (Supplied: Heliograf)abc.net.au/news/sustainable-alternative-shoyu-tai-sushi-plastic-soy-sauce-fish/106596352Link copiedShareShare articleDesigner 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."Loading Instagram contentThose 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-nightmareSince 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.Fish-shaped plastic soy containers banned in SASouth Australia has become the first state in Australia to ban fish-shaped plastic soy sauce containers as it continues to phase out single-use plastics.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…

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