Koizumi Cabinet E-mail Magazine No. 177

Last Friday, I met with Professor Wangari Maathai, Kenya's Deputy Minister of Environment...Prof. Maathai told me how during her visit to Japan she had learned the word "mottainai," which could be literally translated as "don't waste what is valuable." I completely agree with Prof. Maathai on the importance of this concept of "mottainai." I had thought that it was a concept that foreigners would not fully be able to grasp, but as I listened to Prof. Maathai I realized that I too should do my best to spread this "mottainai" spirit around the world.

Important Energy Saving Suggestion from the Prime Minister:

As for toilets equipped with a seat-warming function that are commonly used in Japan, closing the seat cover after use may reduce by 18kg the annual CO2 emissions for each household.

Edited July 6.

The irony of the whole thing is that if mottainai is about not wasting what is valuable, they are wasting valuable time and energy trying to get English speakers to adopt the word mottainai!

Edited July 6

the blind leading the blind

what a LOSER a PM no less thinking 98% of the world can`t understand a word the have in thier own language.

THIS REALLY SHOWS HOW DUMB JAPANESE PEOPLE CAN BE.

perhaps japan could export "the spirt of idyling" also??

I`m sure the japanese could teach everyone of us poor ol FG`s how to leave our engines on in cars/buses/trucks everyday everynight everwhere

THERE you taught us 'mottainai'

IDIOTS

this reminds me when Abe was asked by a J reporter to clarify some contrasting information he had from the J Gov. and another report.

Abe: "so who are you going to believe...a japanese or a foreigner?
"
nice people, japanese.

xcuse the typos...in a rush.

just spread the mottainai term in my scholarship interview three hours ago. I hope I will get it for adapting so nicely to the Japanese culture...

vir-jin wrote:just spread the mottainai term in my scholarship interview three hours ago. I hope I will get it for adapting so nicely to the Japanese culture...

Hey, Good Luck. VJ

Me think the next word they should promote is 'Shoganai', (maybe after the sprit of 'Mottainai' dies off.. )

tinateoh wrote:

vir-jin wrote:just spread the mottainai term in my scholarship interview three hours ago. I hope I will get it for adapting so nicely to the Japanese culture...

Hey, Good Luck. VJ

Me think the next word they should promote is 'Shoganai', (maybe after the sprit of 'Mottainai' dies off.. )

I'll spread the word when they refuse to pay me 20man a month for spreading the word sides are changed easily...

i couldn't care less what what pathetic attempts they make to have a japanese word stick in the english language. if the word has no intrinsic value (ie: conveys a meaning or important distinction not available in english) it won't stick, regardless of the source language.

english is loaded with loanwords, but in contrast to japanese, i don't think english speakers are generally in the habit of replacing words that don't need to be, just to sound more erudite or cool in front of their friends. i've seen "mottainai" used in an excuse for an english textbook. the sentence literally read "that is mottainai". this is not a word that conveys a nuance unique to japanese by any means and i promptly had my students scratch it out and replace it with "that is such a waste" along with my phone number in case their teacher had a problem with their learning real english.

personally, i take far more issue with:

"I had thought that it was a concept that foreigners would not fully be able to grasp"

quite frankly, this attidude grates on my nerves like nothing else, and will probably bug the crap out of me no matter how long i'm here.

What chaps my ass is that JPN people are the most fucking wasteful people on earth. Who gives a fuck if they eat all their rice even if they don't want it or don't use napkins when they eat? They wrap individual apples in fucking styrofoam for fuck's sake.

Also for those three R's: recycle reduce and reuse; all they do is the first. They don't reduce a damn thing. The whole country is big a garbage dump because of it. Reuse? Just toss those wooden chopsticks out after one use. No worries. Recycling is just feel good crap that doesn't help a damn thing. In fact, all the energy and fuel it takes to recycle one product into another may very well be more harmful to the environment than just tossing it in the sea. So fuck if I need to be learning about the horrors of 'waste' from these motherfuckers.

AK, I wanted to help YOU to reduce garbage

AssKissinger wrote:The whole country is big a garbage dump because of it. Reuse? Just toss those wooden chopsticks out after one use.

unless it's plastic.. in which case it's left in a smoldering pile all day right beside the barn so that the cows that deliver your milk are inhaling dioxins.

took forever for us to get the neighbours to stop burning their plastic garbage. it was seriously making me nauseous; big billows of white-blue smoke wafting all over the place. my wife was too much of the "put up and shut up type" but i got vocal enough and put an end to it.

as for the garbage.. i thought a good portion of that which wasn't burned went to the filipines for some reason. anyone have anything to back this up?

They're shipping their old people to nursing homes in the Philipines.

ASSKISSER

spot on they are wasteful bunch of hypocrite fucks, they make me sick with thier "ÿou FG wont understand this concept"

they are stating their HIGH level of nationalisim and LOW level of linguistics, I have really come to think they are DUMB FUCKS.

some egs of japanese wastefulness

idyling
concreting
disposable chopsticks
over wrapping
disposing of anything second hand

JAPANESE DENAIL SYNDROME

what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

vir-jin wrote:what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

I do my part by not breeding.

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

I do my part by not breeding.

refusing life is not an argument to solve pollution- well, maybe .

vir-jin wrote:

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

I do my part by not breeding.

refusing life is not an argument to solve pollution- well, maybe .

Less people make less pollution

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

I do my part by not breeding.

refusing life is not an argument to solve pollution- well, maybe .

Less people make less pollution

more pollution makes less people

vir-jin wrote:

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:

AssKissinger wrote:

vir-jin wrote:what about you, guys- canting on cants...anybody refusing the wrapping, reducing their own garbage? or preferring to talk about it?

I do my part by not breeding.

refusing life is not an argument to solve pollution- well, maybe .

Less people make less pollution

more pollution makes less people

touche!

Japan's convenience stores waste tons of food
Mainichi

In Japan, about 20 million tons of food waste is thrown out each year. That's about 150 kilograms per person. As Japan looks to eliminate wastefulness, adopting the spirit of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, this unused food is raising questions over overproduction, especially in Japan's convenience store business.

One convenience-store chain in the Kanto area checks for expiry dates three times a day, at 12 a.m., 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Items such as rice balls and sandwiches that are fresh for 24 hours or less are thrown out if they come within two hours of their use-by limit. Bread whose expiry date is set several days away is discarded 24 hours before the expiry date, while milk is thrown out four days in advance.

In this way, stores designate "pull dates" for various products. Little difference is seen between major convenience store chains.

"We do this because we're taking into consideration the period in which the products will actually be consumed after they are taken home," explains an official from the Kanto convenience store. As a rule the store is not permitted to discount products approaching their expiry date in the same way as supermarkets do....more...

Marvin wrote:My personal opinion is the Environment Agency should worry more about protecting the environment than try to force a new word into the language, which will probably include more pressure on ODA recipients.

I see from your own organization that the campaign continues...
MDN: Environmental white papers highlight 'Mottainai' spirit
The government on Friday gave Cabinet approval to white papers on the environment and recycling-oriented society for 2005, both of which promoted environmental efforts based on the spirit of the Japanese phrase "Mottainai," (What a waste!), which has been endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Maathai came to Japan in February this year at the invitation of the Mainichi Newspapers. The government's white paper on recycling-oriented society introduces Maathai's experience in Japan of learning the word "mottainai" and being impressed, saying the practice of cherishing things and living a spiritually rich life represented the mind and lifestyle of Japanese. "By reconsidering this word, it is possible to reform lifestyles of bulk production and consumption," the paper says

Captain Japan wrote:
Japan's convenience stores waste tons of food
Mainichi

One convenience-store chain in the Kanto area checks for expiry dates three times a day, at 12 a.m., 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Items such as rice balls and sandwiches that are fresh for 24 hours or less are thrown out if they come within two hours of their use-by limit. Bread whose expiry date is set several days away is discarded 24 hours before the expiry date, while milk is thrown out four days in advance.
url=http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20050606p2a00m0dm011000c.html]more[/url]...

On ethign I give the US credit for is a lot of restaurants donate near expiring food or left over ingredients from restauarnts to shelters on a daily basis. From NYC to the smaaler cities. Japan could learn from this.

Also gotta say dumpster diving for Dunkin Donuts is pretty damn fun.....no one would think of doing that in the Big Mikan.

PS - GJ, Voodoo Donuts waiting for you here in PDX. Damn tasty dude!

L S wrote:

Captain Japan wrote:
Japan's convenience stores waste tons of food
Mainichi

One convenience-store chain in the Kanto area checks for expiry dates three times a day, at 12 a.m., 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Items such as rice balls and sandwiches that are fresh for 24 hours or less are thrown out if they come within two hours of their use-by limit. Bread whose expiry date is set several days away is discarded 24 hours before the expiry date, while milk is thrown out four days in advance.
url=http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20050606p2a00m0dm011000c.html]more[/url]...

On ethign I give the US credit for is a lot of restaurants donate near expiring food or left over ingredients from restauarnts to shelters on a daily basis. From NYC to the smaaler cities. Japan could learn from this.

Also gotta say dumpster diving for Dunkin Donuts is pretty damn fun.....no one would think of doing that in the Big Mikan.

PS - GJ, Voodoo Donuts waiting for you here in PDX. Damn tasty dude!

\


I used to volunteer with Food Not Bombs in Portland OR and we went around and collected a lot of food from restaurants. We'd take anything they'd give us and make it into a stew. I'm sure they could've gotten in trouble if the food made some homeless guy sick or whatever but I guess they trusted us not to narc them out. Rightfully so. I don't think anyone ever got sick from our stews. I always ate a batch of what we served; usually quite good. The restaurant workers in Portland are by in large really cool folk.


When I was younger than that, in college, I worked at McDonald's for awhile in Salt Lake City. We threw away tons of food that was still edible but just minutes past in store expiration. This homeless guy used to meet me by the dumpster and I'd load him up with bag fulls of Big Macs and so on.

Restuarants in America have to keep the dumpsters locked because the homeless will leave the trash all over the parking lot from their dumpster diving. If they would pick up after themselves they could have at it I'm sure.

AssKissinger wrote:

L S wrote:

Captain Japan wrote:
Japan's convenience stores waste tons of food
Mainichi

One convenience-store chain in the Kanto area checks for expiry dates three times a day, at 12 a.m., 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Items such as rice balls and sandwiches that are fresh for 24 hours or less are thrown out if they come within two hours of their use-by limit. Bread whose expiry date is set several days away is discarded 24 hours before the expiry date, while milk is thrown out four days in advance.
url=http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20050606p2a00m0dm011000c.html]more[/url]...

On ethign I give the US credit for is a lot of restaurants donate near expiring food or left over ingredients from restauarnts to shelters on a daily basis. From NYC to the smaaler cities. Japan could learn from this.

Also gotta say dumpster diving for Dunkin Donuts is pretty damn fun.....no one would think of doing that in the Big Mikan.

PS - GJ, Voodoo Donuts waiting for you here in PDX. Damn tasty dude!

\


I used to volunteer with Food Not Bombs in Portland OR and we went around and collected a lot of food from restaurants. We'd take anything they'd give us and make it into a stew. I'm sure they could've gotten in trouble if the food made some homeless guy sick or whatever but I guess they trusted us not to narc them out. Rightfully so. I don't think anyone ever got sick from our stews. I always ate a batch of what we served]

I used to work in a Kroger supermarket and we had a dock for food delieveries, a box bailer, and so on. Every other day, the soup kitchen would come round, and we would take out about 5-10 shopping carts full of dented cans, bread, pasteries and so on for them to distribute to the needy. A lot of the items were fine, just expired, dented, or crushed. We did that for 2 years, and it made me feel pretty good. But then I worked at a Winn Dixie store before that for a short while, and they threw everything in the garbage, and locked the dumsters so homeless couldn't get into them... I thought it was tragic... but then if they had left them open it would have been a big fucking mess, and we would have had to clean it up... so I dunno.

I think every food service business should be forced to make partnerships with charitable organisations... That would take care of a lot of the waste that goes into garbage bins and it will help feed thousands if not millions of people.

Kyodo via Yahoo: Itochu to create 'MOTTAINAI' brand for environment conservation

Japanese trading house Itochu Corp. said Tuesday it will create a new brand to support Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai's "MOTTAINAI (Don't Waste Resources)" campaign.
The MOTTAINAI logo on a green leaf will be printed on T-shirts, cloth bags, tableware and other goods for sale. Part of the proceeds from their sale will be given to the environmentalist's Greenbelt Movement for forestation, the company said. Itochu said it will develop MOTTAINAI-brand products and license other companies to use the brand. The firm said it plans to brief potential manufacturers of goods for the brand in October and select specific goods for sale starting next February. Maathai, Kenya's deputy minister of environment, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental conservation campaign last year.

The graphic below from Itochu's press release shows that the Mainichi is running with this too.

Sounds like a job for ...



Recycleman and the Dumpster Divers