Recycle of old Tatami
“Japanese house means Tatami space”
that’s how things worked for a long time.
Though there are more and more houses in European style and less Tatami room,
many houses still have at least one Tatami room.
If we think in how many Tatami there are, it should be about 6 to 8 Tatami by house.
Under such situation, big earthquake struck Kumamoto prefecture
in south west of Japan in April 2016.
There were many affected people and damaged buildings more than 10,000.
Many Tatami are brought out from uninhabitable houses.
Tatami is large in its size and once it absorb rain,
it’s get really heavy making it difficult to transport in order to dispose.
Handling a large amount of Tatami coming from affected houses may cause a large problem
in way of recovery activity.
So new attempt to recycle disposed Tatami started.
It turns Tatami into carbon and aim to reuse it.
Carbonization means to heat in airless condition to make it into something like carbon.
With this process, old Tatami can become soil amendment or deodorant.
Such idea of
“recycling old Tatami”
is unique to Japanese who have long been living with and loved Tatami.
