Hasta La Gadget!

We all know what it’s like to get caught out in the rain when you are sightseeing. Japan is lucky to be a place with convenience stores on almost every street corner where you can always pick up a cheap, see-through plastic umbrella. However, these break easily and can be often be found discarded in trash cans, or worse, left by a road.

Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture is well-known for its heavy snow and rainfall, and also attracts large amounts of domestic and international tourists for its Kyoto-like historical districts and gardens. Since mid-December last year it has been working to keep its visitors dry in an eco way through the “Minna no eRe:Kasa” scheme (みんなのeRe:傘 or “Everyone’s Re-use Umbrella”).

[Image via Eri Takenaka’s blog.]

Serving both as a convenient service for people caught in sudden rain without protection — and also as a way to reduce thrown-away broken convenience store umbrellas — the project has placed thirty re-used umbrellas each at twenty-one key spots in the center of the city, including the big JR station, sightseeing areas and shopping malls. The City held an inauguration event featuring the singer Eri Takenaka (above) accepting gifts of unneeded umbrellas from local residents, which would then be donated for the scheme.

No registration process is required and usage of the umbrellas is totally free. The City merely asks that borrowers return the umbrella, preferably to the same rental station or at least to another official one.

However, the Daily Yomiuri reported last month that already some one thousand of the fifteen hundred umbrellas are missing, and that the City will have to replace them. This raises the question of how to maintain the umbrella stock at the stations. One solution would be to make special umbrellas in a distinct design, so that people would be too shamed to steal one — or would be sure to return it if they accidentally took it home. However, surely making a new set of durable, unique umbrellas would be an expensive and highly non-eco method!

Our very own Michael Keferl was in Roppongi last week to present at Pecha Kucha Night. Michael talked informally about some of the eco ideas that occurred to us during the making of our just-released ECO Japan Innovation Report.

[Image kindly provided by Pecha Kucha.]

Like the looks of Oregon Scientific’s solar-powered +ECO Clima Control unit but don’t need something that sophisticated — or expensive? The company has just expanded the line with two (slightly) more affordable options for budget and environmentally conscious folks like you. First up is the $100 +ECO Solar Weather Station, which provides the same functionality as its $20 more expensive predecessor, monitoring temperature and humidity in multiple locations and recharging itself via detachable solar panel, but does so with a smaller screen capable of showing indoor and outdoor temperature, time, and an icon representing the coming weather. Also on offer is the $70 +ECO Solar Weather Clock, pictured below, which ditches the weather display and the ability to display humidity, things that may or may not be much of a loss depending on your meteorological inclinations.

Continue reading Oregon Scientific’s +ECO Solar Weather Clock and Station don’t predict solar weather

Oregon Scientific’s +ECO Solar Weather Clock and Station don’t predict solar weather originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Japanese team from Tokai University has taken the top spot at the World Solar Challenge, which was held at the end of last week in Australia. The team beat out the Delft University team which won four consecutive previous Challenges, and this year took second place, with the third seat going to the University of Michigan. The race course travels from southern to northern Australia over 3,000 km (about 1864 miles), and the winning team’s car, Tokai Challenger, completed the race in just under 30 hours, averaging 62 miles per hour. Other notable participants included the MIT-built Eleanor.

[Via Wired]

Filed under: Transportation

Japanese team takes top prize at World Solar Challenge originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve had “my bag” (マイバッグ) and “my chopsticks” (マイハシ). Now comes “my bottle” (マイボトル).

A campaign is being run by the 8 Metropolitan, Prefectures and Cities Leaders Waste Problem Research Committee (八都県市首脳会議廃棄物問題検討委員会) which encourages consumers to bring their own “bottle” (most likely a thermos flask) to participating coffee shops and cafes when they receive drink purchases. The chains taking part in the scheme include many big hitters in Japan: Doutor, Tully’s, Starbucks and Beck’s. A total of 1,671 stores offer the service, including over one thousand in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

However, the rather un-savvy nature of this campaign is evident in the essentially unremarkable posters (above) they are running on JR trains in the capital. The TV commercials and poster advertising adopted by home appliance manufacturers and automobile corporations are much more attractive and impressive, using famous models and actors for one, rather than a picture of an anonymous school girl.

But the only real issue with this “campaign” is that there is nothing really in it for the consumer (i.e. no discount or incentive), other than the whole green bandwagon and making the consumer feel good about their shopping. In fact, as long-term customers know, many chain coffee shops already offer to serve drinks in mugs rather than paper cups – and Starbucks has long had a tradition of customers getting their drinks in their personal thermos (Starbucks design) for take-out. (In fact, by coincidence the American chain is running their own renewal campaign of this service, calling for their customers to “bring my cup” and get 50 yen off.)

The verbosely-named 8 Metropolitan, Prefectures and Cities Leaders Waste Problem Research Committee includes Tokyo, the prefectures of Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba, and the cities of Yokohama, Kawasaki, Saitama and Chiba. Its heart is certainly in the right place, hoping to reduce waste in the Kanto region and to promote re-using other products.

Alongside “my bottle”, the same Committee has organized a “diet packaging” (容器包&装ダイエット) campaign (below), calling for chains and supermarkets to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic wrapping on products. So far they have managed to get over sixty corporations to join their “declaration list” and promise to decrease packaging. However, the precise amounts and details of the reductions are not available.