Eco-logical I: Re-cycling
“What goes around comes around”

The word ECO is everywhere you look these days, from eco-food to eco-clothes, and eco-housing, and it’s really about time. The earth is heading for a disaster with no return if something drastically isn’t done pretty soon. This green asterisk oasis in our solar system may eventually have to change its trademark from green, fresh, and living, to brown, dry and suffocating. The new path is mainly a result of human exploitation and mismanagement of natural resources over only the last couple of hundred years, a drop of time in the sea of earth’s existence. Earth’s destiny is now in our hands, and it’s up to us to heal the wounds and make up for what we’ve already let go to waste. To turn things around something concrete has to be done, on macro level as well as in people’s everyday life. People may say that they cannot achieve any change alone. Well, the thing is that your life doesn’t only concern yourself. You are a part of a much bigger flow, a global responsibility for this planet we call our home, and are thus not in on it alone. 

So what can we do that would make a difference? It probably would be impossible to return to the non-industrial way of living, as most parts of the world through globalization have taken on a consumption-oriented lifestyle, strongly depended on industrial products. However, it is possible and also necessary to cut down on consumption, and instead of making brand new things reuse what is already in circulation. Most industrial countries, due to accumulating disposed products, have been forced to recycle, including Japan. Japanese culture, which is deeply rooted in the respect for natural resources and being in harmony with nature, affects how Japanese approach a problem, and this is no less true when it comes to ecology. Japan is well known for its rice culture and its essentiality becomes even more visible in the ecology campaign. Products made of rice, besides from foodstuff are increasing. Tatami floor-mats made of rice is having a revival as plastic has become a common used material. There is also paper made of rice, and rice bowl and rice chopsticks, products that are edible, leaving nothing to wash and no garbage afterwards either. As plastic increase the amount of garbage and pollution, lately, instead of using plastic bags the “eco-bag” boom has hit Japan, giving reusable shopping bags a fashionable makeover and turning them into hot it-items. In responds to the anti-plastic bag trend a Japanese company has even began producing plastic bags out of old rice. The rice is blended with plastic, making a product that causes 30% less carbon dioxide, and what’s even better it’s cheaper than regular plastic bags and also easier to recycle as well. 

It’s important that eco-measures aren’t too costly, and desirably to be even cheaper than polluting counterparts. If not it simply would be difficult to achieve. Eco has long had an image of being expensive and something exclusive. However, in Japan as seen with the rice-plastic bags, it has been proved that eco also can be economical. On a television show the other day, it was presented how the government and also private residents in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, make use of the enormous amount of snow that accumulates during the winter. Instead of transporting the snow out of the cities, which causes pollution as well as being costly, the snow is moved to snow-preserving magazines annexed to for example schools, old folks homes, and also private homes. Coverage from an old folks home explained that as much as 300 ton fit into the magazine and that the cold air from the snow is transmitted around in the building, functioning as an air conditioner that runs without electricity. Residents interviewed were very pleased with this system, not just because it’s ecological, but also because it’s more comfortable than regular air-conditioners. A man presented, who had installed a snow-magazine at home, explained how his electrical bills had been cut by 50% after applying the system, thus showing that it’s even highly economical as well.

The central key in solving the ecological crisis is to find ways to transform waste into resources, and Japan can really be seen as a pioneer in this field. For instance, north of Tokyo there is a dam made of tires, made up of as many as 4500 units. The tires’ flexible material apparently is extra suited for this use, which promotes the recycling even further. Japan is yearly hit by strong typhoons, which causes great damages to vinyl houses. In Ibaragi north of Tokyo, which is an agriculturally based region, as much as 15.000 tons of vinyl is disposed of every year. In responds to this a company in the region has invented a way of processing the waist into erasers. Another case is a factory making bags from car parts. Japan being one of the largest car producing countries in the world, with about 3,7 million cars being disposed of annually, this kind of activity is most welcome. And it’s good business since the raw materials are low-cost. The outer layer is made of seatbelts and the inside of airbags, eco and cool at the same time. Another company makes bags of tire tubes from trucks. The material is flexible and waterproof, ideal for PC cases and heavy-duty bags, and the eco-effect is enhanced further as 1 % of the sale is donated to WWF. Giving ecological benefits as part of a purchase is becoming a popular way to attract customers. Like, a major Japanese electrical maker that plants a tree in China when people buy one of their eco-products. 

Plastic is a popular material in today’s modern society, light and practical, but also often indecomposable and an environmental problem. On the idyllic islands at the southern tip of Japan, garbage, especially plastic is constantly floating ashore, turning these island paradises into veritable dumps. Though people clean it up, the stream of garbage keeps on hurting vegetation and animal life. Transporting garbage from the islands also takes time, money, and causes pollution, and has been a real ecological dilemma. However, recently a Japanese company has invented a machine that process plastic into oil, a device that reduces the garbage without polluting, and even produces valuable resources in return. Typhoons often shut down the electrical system on these islands, forcing people to use aggregates instead. As these devices use oil, it makes the plastic-transformer an even welcomer devise. In Tokyo where there are many restaurants, an inventor has built a motor that runs on cooking-oil. Instead of dumping the used oil, he collects it from restaurants and uses it to operate a school bus. These are of course unusual cases, but it only shows that there are eco-solutions to most problems. 

So what is one to do? Act, as just thinking about eco really is the same as not doing anything at all. One can use “my chopsticks” instead of disposable ones, “eco-bag”, and in principle choose eco-products. When buying new things, like for instance a toilet, choose the one that uses less water, or a car, choose the one that pollutes the least, or simply not buy anything at all if not needed. The most important thing is to be conscious and to contribute where one can. Find new usage for old things, using milk cartons as cutting boards, or turning curtains into a shopping bag, use your imagination and you’ll see; eco can even be fun as well.