What is Mottainai?

What is Mottainai?

Mottainai:
A beautiful word to say, (moat-TIE-nigh), it means...

Don’t waste that which has value.

Throwing something away is always a shame, but even more so if it still has the potential to bring someone joy and find a new purpose. Sometimes seeing this potential requires vision, creativity and skill to transform things into something completely new and amazing.

Wangari Muta Maathai, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Kenyan environmentalist who brought this word international attention, recognized it captured the 3 Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and even added a bonus R - “Respect”. Love that!

We love that Mottainai appreciates the value in something and respects all the people, resources and effort that contributed to bring it into the world and to you. This also reflects the effort you put in working to pay for it! A great thought to keep in the back of your mind as you go through the day and our planet faces so many challenges. 

At ShoyuDrip we are exploring how we can bring more Mottainai into what we do, so keep an eye out for some fun new stuff in the works!

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