Think Mottainai

As we try to change our habits to become more friendly to the environment, the single most important thing we can change is our mentality.

The current mentality of our culture is that the planet's resources are limitless, so we can use as much as we want. And the planet's landfills are equally limitless, so throwing things away is not a problem. When we use gas for our cars or electricity for our homes or electronics, we think only of the monetary cost, what comes out of our pockets. And when we buy things, we don't worry about where they'll go after we throw them away. The trash man comes once a week and everything we don't want disappears, out of sight, out of mind.

This is the old way of thinking about things. Our new way has to be almost the opposite. We need to think of every use of energy, every consumer purchase (all destined one day to become trash), as having a cost, as mattering.

And that's what mottainai is about.

Mottainai (pronounced like the English words 'moat-tie-nigh') is a Japanese word that doesn't translate directly into English, but means something like, 'Earth and what it gives to us are precious, so we should respect what we have and not use things thoughtlessly, we should not throw things away when they still have usefulness, we should be grateful for our environment, let's not be wasteful.'

Here's an example of how it would be used in Japanese: you go to the local farmer's market and buy a few apples, and the salesperson starts to put them in a plastic bag. You smile and say, 'No, thanks. Mottainai.' The salesperson smiles and hands you the apples, which you put in your pockets or in the bag you brought with you. Another example: you leave the water running while brushing your teeth, and your spouse says, 'Mottainai,' and turns the water off.

Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work in promoting democracy, women's rights and, especially, environmental protection, has spoken around the world about the need for conservation. She learned of the word mottainai while in Japan in 2005, and has used it since, promoting it as an international word, usable in any language, to express the spirit of the environmental movement.

So let's take her cue and make this word a part of our vocabulary. And, more important, let's try to approach our daily lives in the spirit of mottainai.