世論 What Japan Thinks

This ranking survey from goo Ranking used a word I haven’t heard for a while, mottainai, “what a waste”, in a survey entitled what things at work do people think are mottainai?

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of February 2013 1,122 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.1% of the sample were female, 10.2% in their teens, 16.6% in their twenties, 26.5% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 10.6% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My place of work tries to avoid most of the wastes below, but one thing I notice in the office but not listed here is a bilingual poster that is in all the toilet cubicles that reads something like “Please close the toilet seat after use. This saves 15 grammes of CO₂ per day.” 15 grammes of CO₂ is a bit difficult to picture, but apparently is about the same as boiling a kettle, according to Google. Talking of saving electricity, and related to number 4, here is a snap from Flickr, although from a train rather than an office:

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This recent survey from MyVoice into environmental issues, their second time of conducting it, with the first time being here, found that positive action was quite low.

Demographics

Over the first five days of March 2009 15,563 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% aged fifty or older.

MOTTAINAI is the Japanese word that approximately translates to “what a waste”.

Here is a public service advertisement about refusing a plastic bag that gets broadcast quite often even at prime time:

I find it quite depressing that such a small step is reckoned to be so difficult for people to understand or carry out that it bears repeating so often even at prime time, when there are a hundred and one other just as simple and more effective steps that they could be talking about, and there are another hundred and one more important messages that a public service advertisement could address.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the people who once saw a program somewhere that showed how at that point in time separated rubbish all got burnt together, therefore they don’t need to bother doing it themselves.
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Another survey that MyVoice performed at the start of July was on environmental issues and MOTTAINAI. 12,326 members of their MyVoice monitor community successfully completed a private internet questionnaire; 54% of the sample was female, 3% in their teens, 22% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 12% in their fifties.

MOTTAINAI, or to translate, “what a waste”, is a Japanese word cleverly adopted by Wangari Muta Maathai and her Greenbelt Movement, and clumsily, in my opinion, adopted by Japanese businesses in order to flog more tat or to appear green. It may be worth pointing out that another environmental campaign, Cool Biz, has, I fear, dropped out of the public awareness as a real measure, and has become merely lipservice towards environmentalism. One of the train companies I use during my commute, for instance, said in their fortnightly free paper that the company would be supporting Cool Biz by setting the air conditioner to 26°C in most carriages, and 27°C in the lightly air-conditioned carriages. However, it’s cold enough most mornings and evenings to give me goose-pimples in shirt sleeves, and in fact last weekend I checked an in-carriage thermometer and it was reading 20°C in the lightly air-conditioned carriage. MOTTAINAI indeed!
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