It's related to the concept of Mottainai (もったいない, 勿体無い) in Japanese culture. Where any waste is considered bad, specially related to food.
replies(5):
- humidity and the generally mold-friendly conditions of Japan means that not doing wrapping of certain food in small packs means you’re risking food waste. And generally speaking food hygiene issues can be avoided
- if you look up how much plastic is actually needed to wrap something in plastic, it’s not that much material. A single Lego brick is more plastic than a loooooot of Saran wrap.
It’s good to reduce waste when possible, but I do get the health/food waste concerns. And to Japans credit, I’ve found that plastic packaging for like… products tends to be way less than equivalent plastic packaged products abroad in many cases IME. My Sony earbuds came entirely in cardboard packaging! No fancy thick printed box either, just some thin simple paper material.