I now know why Japan is called the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’, because
the sunrise is at an incredible 5 am! I was not aware of this fact, so I
had no curtain drawn to protect my eyes, and began my day much earlier
than anticipated. With so much time to spare some of the girls and I
walked the town in search of breakfast until our 9:30 call time.
Today we went to PETEC, west of Osaka (about 2 hours away). After a
series of trains across Japan we arrived at the Panasonic Environmental
Technology Center. Here we were taken through on a tour of the facility,
which in compliance with the Japanese National Small Appliance
Recycling law takes apart and recycles parts of fridges, microwaves,
washing machines, and other small electrical appliances. This issue is
especially important to Japan because they lack many necessary resources
for the production of technology that can be found in old appliances.
The
technology utilized in PETEC was fascinating. The machines varied from
extremely precise ones that separated 3 types of plastics based on a
reading from an infrared laser and blew them in to corresponding
containers to machines that used brute force to crush the appliances to
dust. This facility is part of Panasonic’s Green-2018 program, working
towards energy efficient production technology. PETEC was not just a
reactionary measure to the Small Appliance Recycling law by Panasonic
but an extension of their creator Konuske Matsushita’s vision for the
company. Panasonic along side other electronics companies lobbied the
National Diet for this law to be enacted.
Waiting for the
train to go back to Kyoto a bunch of school kids walked up (all about 6
years old) by themselves to take the train home. I remember that Dr.
Stapp had told us how safe Japan was, but the culture of walking alone
as a child to a train station spoke volumes.
Once
we arrived in Kyoto, Dr. Stapp and our friend from Panasonic guided us
to our dinner reservation at a very traditional Japanese style
restaurant. The meal was served as a series of small courses. We began
with raw fish, then beef shabu shabu, and finally steamed rice and miso
soup.
Today
was packed, but I don’t feel like we did too much and definitely not
too little. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the trip has in store.
I’ll post more when I can!
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Read more from Stephanie at http://stephsadventuresabroad.tumblr.com/
Find out more about the U of A International Business in Japan program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/wcobjapan
