Food Waste Washi - Zero Waste Life

Since ancient times, the Japanese have believed that a life force resides in all creations. Valuing and caring for the things we use, a zero-waste life. Pointing the way to better living for a new era. Echizen is one of the three major production centers for traditional washi paper. With a history of around 1,500 years, the papermaking industry has been inherited by each succeeding generation. Here, in the home of washi paper, the aroma of fruit emanates from one of the workshops. In this over 100-year-old business, Igarashi Masami, fourth-generation papermaker, is hard at work. The source of the fruity aroma? Mandarin orange peels she's using to make paper. I get the peels from school lunches and the mandarin oranges from the supermarkets. Igarashi also collects vegetable scraps and unsellable substandard produce for her paper. I'm not sure what's wrong with it, but I feel like I can eat it. New Echizen washi paper. Born from discarded produce, she's dubbed food paper. Today, she's visiting a food processing plant to collect their discards. This plant produces cut vegetables. They throw out scraps like leaves and peels every day, from 500 kilograms to as much as a ton of them. Such discards have long been an issue. Once she returns to the workshop, the first step is processing the discarded vegetables. One at a time, she carefully lays out the onion skins to dry in the sun. This also helps to improve the colour. She next washes the potato peels by hand. When I wash them, they become a bit shaggy. Then I dry them again. It's bad if I don't use all the peels I've just received. But it's OK. With the processing done, it's now time to start making the food paper. She'll be using the onion skins she dried earlier. After weighing, they're placed in an industrial blender. Next is paper mulberry, or kozo, Washi's traditional base ingredient. The pulp is dissolved in water to loosen the fibres. The processed onion skins are then mixed in, and finally, mucilage made from the roots of a type of hibiscus is added. Evenly blending the onion and mulberry fibres makes the paper stronger. The mixture is poured over a screen frame, a traditional paper-making technique. It's a bit like shintama in Harusakiya. Today, it's a bit more calm, and has a gentle colour to it. I think it's very cute. Once the sheet is formed, it's left out in the sun to dry for a full day. The uneven texture and natural colours of the food ingredients give a seasonal flavour to the finished product. Depending on the time of harvest, and the type of produce, and even the area in which it was grown, the colours vary, so no two sheets are alike. Food paper got its start three years earlier, with a hint from Igarashi's son Yuto's summer term school project. This is the banana paper that started it all. Yuto was fascinated by the notion that you could make paper from food. And he experimented with making washi from ingredients they had at home. The idea to use Yuto's vegetable-based washi as a way to combat the problem of food waste came from Igarashi herself. But she was conflicted about making changes to traditional Echizen washi. I've always wanted to make something that represents Japan, something that represents Hansatsu-da. But I was always worried that I might be neglecting the actions of my predecessors. I was like, what the hell is this? What kind of waste is this? What if they told me that this is not Echizen washi? It's fine if I'm the only one who gets angry, but I didn't want to ruin the reputation of others. So I was always worried. It was her father, the one who taught her papermaking, who urged her to try. When people ask me if Echizen washi is Echizen washi, I'm a little worried. But traditional products have become less and less popular over the years. So I want to pass on what I've learned to my descendants. I think it's important to preserve the tradition, but also to use new materials to make washi. A new form of Echizen washi, born from a son's original idea and a mother's traditional techniques. My mother suddenly told me that she had made a product using my research. At first, I didn't know what she was talking about. I thought it was a joke. I'm happy about it, but more than that, I want more washi to spread. Including notebooks and greeting cards, they've created a number of food paper products. Today is the day of the annual spring festival held each May. It gives thanks to the goddess who, legend has it, brought papermaking to this land, a ceremony passed down for over 1,300 years. A paper market is also held in conjunction with the festival, and people come from all over Japan to buy Echizen washi. Many are curious about Igarashi's food paper. Do you feel the warmth of nature? I think it's amazing. It's important. It smells good. Onion and long green onion. It's all green onion. I bought it because I thought it would be useful to make a circle with children. How much is the weight? It's about 40% of a carrot. Wow! Thank you very much. Please draw a lot. Until now, I didn't know there were so many food loss in the world. I thought I couldn't do anything with my own power, but I thought I could do something about it. Even if it's not 100, if one person changes 2 or 5, it will be a big action all over the world. I was really worried at that time, but I'm glad I did it now. I hope that Echizen Washi and food loss will spread in double and we can all be happy.