Reprocessing: Why Unnecessary

摘要

When was it, I wonder, that it became the daily custom in this country to throw things away after their uses? A historical example of use-and-throw-away culture originating in the distant past is disposable chopsticks. According to what I have heard from a chopstick maker in Kyoto, chopsticks first started in the Yayoi period (300B.C.-3rd Century), when they were used as instruments in festivals. It appears that the use-and-throw-away custom of disposable chopsticks which seeped in afterwards was tied in with Shinto (Japanese religion) rituals. It was believed that a spirit came to reside in chopsticks once they had been used, and it became the custom that if they had been outside, they were not taken back home but rather thrown away on the spot. People then thought that if an animal were to play around with the chopsticks, then some disaster would be inflicted upon oneself, and so it was also to prevent this from happening that one had to be sure to break the chopsticks and throw them away.