The 9th Eco Products 2007 - Eco Style Fair

I took part in The 9th Eco Products 2007 in Tokyo Big Sight to see various news of Eco Products with my friend on last Saturday. The hall of Tokyo Big Sight was so large that I was sometime confused and lost my way.(^_^;) There were so many booths of various companies and organizations and a lot of products and thinking for our ecology. Example, eco-car, FCX, of HONDA, PRIUS of TOYOTA and biomass energy, organic products, wind and water electricity and so on.

I was impressed with technology of superconduction. Applying it to a train seems to have initial cost and running cost pretty low and applying superconduction element to computers seems to be able to consume lower amount of electric power. I think these technologies may be more and more important in industrial world. My company, FANUC, is also no exception. We had better improve the existing technology, products and systems for care environment as a company on the earth.

There was Earthwatch booth so I went there and gave the staff my photos of Walking with Rhinos because I was supposed to furnish them to Earthwatch.

There was the booth of hand-made chopsticks so I tried to make my chopsticks. They were unshapely, too thick and not so good but I’m going to use them when I take a meal in my laboratory. The mark on one of chopsticks is Japanese and means Eco. In Japan, disposable chopsticks are frequently used at many restaurants and they are made from woods. I don’t know details about disposable chopsticks but there are two thoughts, one is that disposable chopsticks is bad because using so many chopsticks causes consuming large quantities of wood and destruction of forests. Another one is that disposable chopsticks is good because they are made from scrap wood when timber dealers saw up logs and using them is to make good use of scrap wood. I think both are right. Anyway, I should use everything as well as these chopsticks with care.

The friend who is next me is Yumeko. I met her in Dubai airport when I went to Kenya. Then she also went to Kenya to take part in Study Tour and seemed to go to Massai village, Kibera slum, Elephant orphanage and so on. She is so nice and cheerful as well as interested in care environment and volunteer work. She invited me to take part in this exhibition. The wall behind us was made from so many milk packs and the booth was recommending us to recycle them.

The last photo is my eco bag. I got it there. Do you have eco bag? Eco bags are for shopping at supermarkets and it is for to reduce CO2 as well as shopping bags made from oil. It is recommended in many places in Japan but few people use it. It is not enough, I think. I want to make eco bags that have the mark of our snowboard team, Snowbird.