Naomi Arimoto, a Japanese manicurist, is putting the issue of plastic waste under her fingernails before world leaders take it on this month.
Arimoto meticulously sorts the sand at the beach close to her house south of Tokyo in search of little pieces of plastic that she can shape into ornamental tips to apply to the fake nails at her salon. After participating in coastal community cleanups, she had the idea.
The instant I seen firsthand how much plastic debris was in the ocean, I became conscious of environmental problems, said 42-year-old Arimoto. It was terrifying to me.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that 22 million tons of plastic garbage are released into the environment annually. Beginning on November 25, a United Nations summit in Busan, South Korea, seeks to draft a historic agreement that would impose worldwide limits on plastic manufacture.
Environmental watchdog Greenpeace hailed the United States, one of the largest producers of plastic in the world, as a turning point in the fight against plastic pollution when it announced in August that it would support a global pact.
After having to quit her job as a social worker due to a spinal problem, Arimoto opened a nail salon in her house in 2018. Since 2021, she has been creating nail art with umigomi, or sea rubbish. Every month, she utilizes a specially designed wheelchair to search the local beach for microplastics that other cleaners would overlook in order to collect the raw materials.
Arimoto first rinses the plastic in fresh water before classifying it by color in order to transform garbage into treasure. Before melting the plastic to create a vibrant disc that can be fastened to the artificial nails, she breaks the plastic into smaller pieces and inserts them into a metal ring. The starting price for a set is 12,760 yen ($82.52).
Kyoko Kurokawa, 57, a client of the salon, said, “I knew there are other things made of recycled materials, like toilet paper and other everyday necessities, but I didn’t know you could have nails too. That was a surprise.”
Although Arimoto admits that her nail art represents a drop in a vast ocean of plastic waste, she thinks that bringing attention to the issue is a first step in finding a solution.
By placing these in the public view and at their fingertips, I hope that people will appreciate fashion and grow more conscious of environmental issues,” she said.
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