Mottainai

Mottainai is a word that meaning "let's not waste it". Mottainai is a very widely used, and can be considered as one of the core symbols of Japanese thinking. Mottainai is visible everywhere. In the way how Japanese have custom to clean their rice bowls so that not one single seed of rice is wasted, or the way how Japanese Buddhist man wraps a beetle into his napking gently and takes it outside, without hurting the living being - thus not wasting the life. In the old times mottainai could be used as "it was inconvenient" and "more than my situation". One can also say mottainai in another kind of situation, when food in restaurant for example wasn't so delicious.

Japanese Minister Yuriko Koike created the "Mottainai Furoshiki" as a symbol of Japanese culture to reduce wastes. Furoshiki is traditional Japanese wrapping clothe that is used to protect and carry things. Mottainai furoshiki is made from recycled PET bottles, and has a motifs designed by Itoh Jakuchu, a painter of the mid-Edo era

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