Garbage :( interview to grandma!

              The amount of garbage has exponentially increased in the past 40 years in Japan. After losing the World War 2, Japan’s government promoted “mass production and consumption” to Japanese people in order to make Japan’s economy grow rapidly to catch up with United States and other developed countries. This made the amount of garbage increase.

I interviewed my grandmother to know how we can decrease the amount of garbage we throw away everyday. Her lifestyle when she was young was completely different from how we live today.

First of all, everything was recycled. To give an example, my grandmother told me about cooking. What do you do with peels of vegetables? Most people throw them in the garbage box, but people back in the old days didn’t. They chopped the peels into small bits, and put them into miso-soup, or put them into rice bran to make pickled vegetables ( otsukemono in Japanese). The very tip of the vegetables that can’t be eaten weren’t thrown away. They took them outside, and bury it into the ground. Then the peels will go back to the Earth, be recycled. Also, there weren’t as much plastic things back when my grandmother was young. Plastic was something that was rare. When people go shopping, they always take shopping bags with them and when they forget, the seller lends them bags.

All in all, the amount of garbage increasing in Japan can be changed by every one of us doing something little by little to save the Earth. Eat everything that is on your plate, never leave leftovers, bring bags when you shop, and don’t throw away things that can still be used. A little kindness to the Earth will make our lives better! :)

Nao