Bra burning in Japan!!!

So!

My young friend, Mariko, just came back to Alaska after spending a month visiting her friends and family in Japan. One of the many things she brought back was this red bag and directions on how to use it.

Now first you must understand that many women in Japan are very uncomfortable throwing away their old unmentionables. The trash bags are transparent and if they put their old bras and panties therein, oh no, the neighbors and even perfect strangers might see their underwear!!!!

Subsequently many lingerie stores will provide plain brown wrappers, bags, wherein ladies can drop and seal their dainties and give them to the clerk at the shop. Then the store will dispose of the customer's old lingerie for them with a firm assurance that said items will be unseen by human eyes and untouched by human hands.

So! This firm (back to the red bag shown above) takes it one step farther. They accept the old bras from the customer, discreetly packed in the red bag, run it through recycling machinery that removes the wire from the bra (I think all Japanese bras have wire in them.), grind up the remaining material and compress it to make fuel pellets to be burned in power plants to generate electricity.

Hey, a whole new meaning to the phrase 'bra burning'!

Not only that but they pay the customer 500 yen for allowing them to burn her bra! :-)