Matsumoto Junior High School

Kakegawa Yuki

Do you separate garbage every day?

 

 Last year 40 billion yen worth of food was discarded by convenience stores because of the best before date. They lost much more money than they made. Every year each person wastes 150 kilograms of food.

 Have you ever heard of “Mottainai”? 2004 Noble Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, introduced the Japanese concept of “Mottainai” at a meeting for the United Nations commission on the Status of women.

 “Mottainai” is not for only food. It applies to plastics, cans, clothes, and so on. Yokohama started a campaign ‘G30’. Have you ever thought about ‘G30’? The ‘G’ stands for ‘Garbage’ and ‘Gomi’. It also stands for ‘Genryo’ which means ‘Reducing’. ‘30’ means the target to make a 30 percent reduction of garbage.

 We started a similar campaign to reduce garbage in our school this year. This campaign is simple. We separate plastics garbage, common garbage, and recycle papers. Then garbage in our school was decreased as a result. And it is important for us not only to separate but also to take care of things. That is one of the measures of ‘3Rs’.

 The 3Rs mean Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. We use things repeatedly. We reproduce things. Is it difficult for us not to buy anything? Is it difficult for us to reproduce PET bottles? Is it difficult to reform clothes or to sell them to recycle-shops?

 What can we do as junior high school students? We should think about something as junior high school students. I found out that carrying out our campaign was affected reducing garbage in our school. We have to think earnestly about garbage in order to reduce garbage. Our daily movements will become bigger with your cooperation, although it is just a small movement. Now it is necessary for the government and municipalities to work on a garbage problem.

What can we do not to make the earth covered with garbage?

 

2004年にノーベル平和賞を受賞したワンガリ・マータイさんがもったいない運動を始めた。横浜市でもＧ30運動を行っている。この運動に対して、私たち中学生には何ができるのだろうか。何を考えるべきなのだろうか。