South Australia Bans Shoyu-tai

Shoyu-tai are little fish-shaped single-use plastic bottles pre-filled with soy sauce. So convenient! These little guys have been swimming around since the 1950s. Usually found with bento and airline meals, each little shoyu-tai (literally "soy sauce snapper") contains 3 milliliters (0.1 US fl. oz), just a few precious drops of that soy sauce goodness.

Adorable? Yes. Awful pollutants? Also yes.

Shoyu-tai are made out of polyethylene, the most common type of plastic, also found in plastic bags and containers like jars, bottles, and cups. What makes these containers especially pollutant is their adorable size: they're so small they often fall out of recycling pipelines and end up in drains and waterways, eventually ending up in the ocean. Even if they make it to a recycling plant, they're too small for the machines to actually recycle them.

For just a few brief seconds of convenient soy sauce dispensing, those fish shaped containers will "live" on in the environment for about 450 years, and then for much longer as microplastics.

That's why, in September 2025, South Australia became the first place in the world to ban the so-called "Lunch Charm". South Australia's Single-use and Other Plastic Products (Waste Avoidance) Act 2020 bans pre-filled soy sauce containers with a lid containing less than 30ml of soy sauce. As the BBC points out, this ban covers all tiny soy sauce containers with a lid, but the shoyu-tai are the most recognizable.

Sellicks Beach, now with slightly less plastic

Because they're a convenience item so easily replaced with bulk or refillable options, "their elimination directly reduces the volume of single-use plastic entering the waste stream" Dr. Susan Close, South Australia's Environment Minister, said to The Guardian.

But thick microplastics eventually settling in your brain aren't the only issue. In that same Guardian article Dr. Nina Wootton, a marine ecologist, says, "other organisms that eat fish that size could think it is a fish and then eat it."

So is the world really better off without them? Probably so, even though they're super cute. According to UN reports, 68% of single-use plastic bottles end up in landfills or just floating around in the world.

If you think reducing the production of single-use plastics shaped like little fish is a waste of time or anti-business, fear not! So far, South Australia is the only place to ban shoyu-tai.

If you think we can do more to curb our seemingly-insatiable appetite for immortal plastic waste we only use once, it is possible! The easiest changes to make are your own habits and purchases. You can also get involved with local groups to make a change in your own community.

By choosing and re-using more recyclable plastics, we can all begin to make an impact. If you want to try taking a step in that direction, consider picking up a bottle of SANC soy sauce.

Good luck everyone!