Old ideas are the best
I'm starting to get a bit fed up with the amount of plastic bags I'm accumulating. So I've been starting to look at ways to apply Mottainai or Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. (more info). The ordering for the three R's is important. It's best to try reduce consumption, reuse what you have to consume and finally recycle what you cant reuse. As with everything in life, the right way is the most difficult way.
Recycling is easy. I can put the bags out for recycling every other Wednesday or take them to the special bins at the supermarket. But recycling isn't ideal since you need energy to turn the old bags into new.
Reuse; if you can reuse the bag, then the bag is still useful and it doesn't become waste. I can re-use some bags to keep my dirty footy kit in on the way back from training as rubbish bags. But I still have many left over that need to be recycled, so not ideal
Reduce is the first R, the most effective but also the most difficult to implement; I need to reduce the amount of plastic bags I get given at supermarkets. Now, I've tried keeping old bags with me so that when I went shopping I could whip them out and use them instead. Every time I did this, the clerk and the other shoppers looked at me as if I'd taken a big dump on the counter. No shit. I had similar looks when I had the audacity to give back an unused bag when I managed to fit my shopping in two of the three they offered. It's a manifestation of the local Double-Think; "We're eco and we re-use things, look at Hard-Off and Second Street" alongside with "Here, have a new one to make sure it's clean". But, there could be couple of traditional ways round this.
The first idea is MyBag*. Basically, it's a new term for shopping bag, as in your own fabric bag that you take and fill with shopping. My Mum used to have one before the days of the 'Weekly Asda Run'. The idea has been given a new term which makes it easy to talk about and less thus less scarey more likely to become acceptable (compare
"What's that?" "It's a bag I brought to put my own shopping in" "Ayyyyyyy? [That's] very unusual. [You are] strange."
with
"What's that?" "It's MyBag" "Ah! I know MyBag! [it is and you are] Very Cool!")
The second idea is an old Japanese tradition; Furoshiki. Basically, it is a very large cloth that you can wrap and carry things in. I've had a curious obsession about these after seeing my teachers wrap their bentos in one and old people carry stuff in them but I've never been able to work out how to fold and tie them properly. Help is at hand, bacuse I found this Furoshiki Folding Guide.
So, armed with a shopping bag and a big handkerchief, I'm off to save the world!
*There's also the term 'My Hashi'(My chopsticks) which describes taking your own chopsticks to restaurants
Recycling is easy. I can put the bags out for recycling every other Wednesday or take them to the special bins at the supermarket. But recycling isn't ideal since you need energy to turn the old bags into new.
Reuse; if you can reuse the bag, then the bag is still useful and it doesn't become waste. I can re-use some bags to keep my dirty footy kit in on the way back from training as rubbish bags. But I still have many left over that need to be recycled, so not ideal
Reduce is the first R, the most effective but also the most difficult to implement; I need to reduce the amount of plastic bags I get given at supermarkets. Now, I've tried keeping old bags with me so that when I went shopping I could whip them out and use them instead. Every time I did this, the clerk and the other shoppers looked at me as if I'd taken a big dump on the counter. No shit. I had similar looks when I had the audacity to give back an unused bag when I managed to fit my shopping in two of the three they offered. It's a manifestation of the local Double-Think; "We're eco and we re-use things, look at Hard-Off and Second Street" alongside with "Here, have a new one to make sure it's clean". But, there could be couple of traditional ways round this.
The first idea is MyBag*. Basically, it's a new term for shopping bag, as in your own fabric bag that you take and fill with shopping. My Mum used to have one before the days of the 'Weekly Asda Run'. The idea has been given a new term which makes it easy to talk about and less thus less scarey more likely to become acceptable (compare
"What's that?" "It's a bag I brought to put my own shopping in" "Ayyyyyyy? [That's] very unusual. [You are] strange."
with
"What's that?" "It's MyBag" "Ah! I know MyBag! [it is and you are] Very Cool!")
The second idea is an old Japanese tradition; Furoshiki. Basically, it is a very large cloth that you can wrap and carry things in. I've had a curious obsession about these after seeing my teachers wrap their bentos in one and old people carry stuff in them but I've never been able to work out how to fold and tie them properly. Help is at hand, bacuse I found this Furoshiki Folding Guide.
So, armed with a shopping bag and a big handkerchief, I'm off to save the world!
*There's also the term 'My Hashi'(My chopsticks) which describes taking your own chopsticks to restaurants
Niigata JET Blogs
2 Comments:
my bag? eh? And this idea is revolutionary? They should do what they've been doing in germany for the past 30 or so years.....make people pay for carrier bags. It's a good incentive to take your own..err.."my bag". Japan is number one on the "100 ways to waste as much crap as possible when going shopping" list. The way they wrap EVERYTHING up then out it all in numerous bags drives me insane. Not necessary.
Tell me about it. It's so annoying when you buy a can of coffee and they give it to you in a bag!! I know the phrases "fukuro iranai" ("Bag not needed") and "ohashi iranai" ("chopsticks not needed") but you have to be quick to say them before they whip them out and put them in your hands!
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