Japanese Train Station Parking Lot Packed Full of Bikes

This is pure awesome – and we need a lot more of this in the U.S.  It’s a bicycle parking lot outside a train station in Japan, a country where this is quite a common sight.  Imagine if Americans were as gung-ho about riding bikes everywhere as the Japanese, the Chinese or the Dutch – we’d all be so much healthier and happier, and our country would be a hell of a lot cleaner.

It would be hard to remember where you parked, though.  “Remember, kids – GOOFY D!”

Link [Flickr] via [Digg]

Japan Uses Recycled Leftovers as Animal Feed

Japan has gotten resourceful with their animal feed: they’re putting the country’s huge amounts of food waste to work. The country disposes of approximately 20,000 tons of food every year, which decomposed in landfills, filling the air with the greenhouse gas methane. In 2001, the Japanese government put laws into effect that led to a new kind of recycling industry – one where those food scraps are either turned into animal feed and fertilizer, or allowed to decompose in special facilities that harness the methane to power industrial plants.

From Reuters:

Food recyclers often use leftovers from convenience stores and restaurants where strict health laws mean unsold items must be thrown out at the end of the day.

“They don’t take disposed food from households as they are not in good conditions,” said Miwa.

Japan imports about 75 percent of its feedstocks from abroad. It is the world’s biggest corn importer to feed animals.

But recent price hikes due to high corn and soy meal prices, the main ingredients in animal feed, has made recycled feed more popular. Although it still accounts for only 1 percent of feedstocks in Japan, or about 150,000 tonnes in 2006, double the volume of 2003. In Japan, companies such as food manufacturers, retailers and restaurants produce some 11 million tonnes of food waste a year. They are responsible for disposing the waste, often paying hefty fees to have it carted away and dumped.

It sounds as if the animals are being carefully monitored to avoid any health issues that may result from this process, and the recyclers are careful to remove inedible items from the food waste before it’s recycled.

Getting smart about waste, trash, food and greenhouse gases: we need to see a lot more of this sort of thing going forward.

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

Japanese Hybrid Engineer Died from Too Much Work

The Japanese labor bureau has ruled that the cause of death of one of Toyota’s top car engineers was too much work. The engineer, who had been working on hybrid technology, had been under severe pressure while developing the hybrid version of the Toyota Camry. The 45-year-old man had been getting 80 hours of overtime per month in the months leading up to his death.

From The Huffington Post:

He regularly worked nights and weekends, was frequently sent abroad and was grappling with shipping a model for the pivotal North American International Auto Show in Detroit when he died of ischemic heart disease in January 2006. The man’s daughter found his body at their home the day before he was to leave for the United States.

The ruling was handed down June 30 and will allow his family to collect benefits from his work insurance, Mizuno said.

In Japan, death from overwork is common enough to have its own word: karoshi. Working extremely long hours isn’t outside the norm there.

So, be grateful. Many bothans (I mean, Japanese engineers) died to bring us this information (er, hybrid technology).

Link [The Huffington Post]

Namba Parks: Awesome Green Architecture in Japan

Does this look like the future, or what? One of the major drawbacks to living in an urban area, in my opinion, is the lack of sufficient green space. I find all the concrete and asphalt depressing – I need nature. Architecture that incorporates green space into the design can be a big draw to get people into urban centers and putting a stop to suburban sprawl. I would love to see more buildings like this worldwide.

The details from MetaEfficient:

In a city with few green spaces, Namba Parks is a welcome swath of green for the inhabitants of Osaka. Check out this full size photo of this amazing piece of architecture. The complex stands where Osaka’s baseball stadium used to be until 2003, and consists of a 30-floor skyscraper, Parks Tower, and a shopping mall with eight floors of terraced gardens. The sloping park connects to the street, welcoming passers-by to enjoy its groves of trees, clusters of rocks, cliffs, lawn, streams, waterfalls, ponds and outdoor terraces.

Link [MetaEfficient]
Photo credit: Flickr user A Posh Sentinel

Bored Japanese Guy + Recycled Chopsticks = Awesome Green Canoe

Shuhei Ogawara, a city hall forestry employee in Fukushima, Japan must have looked around the lunchroom in dismay at all the wasted-single use wooden chopsticks discarded so callously after poking through rice and picking up sashimi.

And then, inspiration struck. Why not build a canoe out of all those chopsticks? What would have been a weird, sort of random idea for most of us came as second nature to Ogawara who also happened to be a canoe-maker (go figure). So anyway, he saved up a boat-load (hahaha!) of chopsticks and built him a canoe. We commend him for his recycling efforts but even more so for his awesome waste of time and extra potentially toxic polyester resin needed to glue all those little sticks together. Where is anime porn when a man needs it?

Link [pinktentacle]

Japan Steel Works- Builds 600 Ton Parts for Nuclear Power Plants and Samurai Swords

Bloomberg has a fascinating article about Japan Steel Works Ltd., the only company in the world capable of manufacturing the central piece of a nuclear reactor’s containment vessel in a single pour, which is important for safety considerations. The piece starts life as a 600 ton ingot with a required down payment of $100M that takes three months to produce. There’s a years long back log to order one if you’re in the market.

Here’s a quick bit of the story from Bloomberg:

Orders for nuclear generators are multiplying as electricity use surges worldwide and governments pressure companies to cut carbon emissions to fight global warming. As many as 237 reactors may be built globally by 2030, an average of more than 10 a year, according to the World Nuclear Association in London. That compares with 78, or fewer than four a year, started since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine.

Given Japan Steel’s limited capacity, the math just doesn’t work, said Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear industry consultant near Paris. Japan Steel caters to all nuclear reactor makers except in Russia, which makes its own heavy forgings.

Competitors’ Moves

“I find it just amazing that so many people jumped on the bandwagon of this renaissance without ever looking at the industrial side of it,” Schneider said.

It would take any competitor more than five years to catch up with Japan Steel’s technology, said the company’s chief executive officer, Masahisa Nagata.

Rivals are working to break the Japan Steel stranglehold, including South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. and Japan Casting & Forging Corp., a joint venture of Nippon Steel Corp. and Mitsubishi Steel Manufacturing Co.

The coolest part of the story is that the other product made by Japan Steel Works are $10,000 samurai swords. The have craftsman who forge them in a special little hut up the hill from the main building using ancient Japanese forging techniques. Pure Awesome.

Link [Bloomberg] via Gizmodo

Photo credit: Flickr user renfield

Evil Incarnate, Japanese Whalers Slaughter Mother Whale and Her Calf for “Scientific Research”

Warning: This story is disturbing, the video even more so. Watch it only if you can stomach seeing the graphic killing of whales, including a mother and her calf.

Japan has spent the last decade or so flouting international whaling laws by claiming it’s slaughter of thousands of whales a year is for “scientific research“. They spent millions of dollars lobbying the International Whaling Commission for the resumption of commercial whaling and when that didn’t work they left the IWC and formed their own pro-whaling organization called NAMMCO. Meanwhile their “scientific” whale meat is sold is grocery stores and restaurants.

Australia has taken it upon themselves to closely monitor the Japanese whaling fleet when they enter their territorial waters and to document the slaughter to gather evidence for a future case in international court.

The Australians just published some sickening videos and photos of a whale hunt that show Japan’s claim of their hunt being scientific is without merit. It’s stomach churning, but important to see to understand the barbarism of this vicious practice. Fucking Japanese whalers.

Check out Celsias and Environmental Graffiti to learn more about this very important story.