On a recent weekday in November, buyers from outside Japan showed up en masse at an auction center seeking secondhand articles. Their shouted purchase prices, such as “100,000 yen” ($639), echoed ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Mottainai, which can be approximately translated as “what a waste” or “too good to waste,” is the Japanese ideal of respecting the ...

Whether it’s hygge or kakeibo, age-old philosophies are increasingly relevant to informing today’s lifestyles. “Mottainai,” a Japanese expression of regret over waste, is a concept that has seen ...

Most of us are familiar with the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. But did you know that in Japan they can be boiled down to just one succinct term? Over the last few years, the word "mottainai" has ...

In environmental studies, islands are often noted as isolated places where people have caused problems by exhausting local resources. The most famous example is Easter Island. The builders of the ...

Japan's celebrated principles of thrift and conservation further sustainability in the culinary world, brilliantly embracing scraps, leftovers and the whole animal. The breezy fishing village of ...