Kamiita Town Growing Bitter Gourds as Office Sunshades

Kamiita Town in Tokushima Prefecture is growing bitter gourds to provide shade for the windows of its town office. By blocking sunlight with vine plants, the town intends to reduce air conditioning use for environmental conservation and financial savings.

In the winter of 2005, the town attracted media attention, including coverage in the Washington Post of the United States, for turning off the heat under the national government's "Warm Biz" energy-saving campaign. Thus, the town employees sought ideas for the "Cool Biz" summer campaign and decided to minimize the use of air conditioning by producing green curtains of vegetation to lower the temperature of the town office. They selected the bitter gourd over other vine plants, such as loofah and morning glory, because bitter gourd is a healthy edible plant and is a specialty of Ishigaki City in Okinawa Prefecture, the town's friendship city.

In support of this initiative, a local resident offered bitter gourd seedlings, and Ishigaki City also sent seeds to the town. The seedlings were planted on the north and south sides of the town office on May 29, 2006, and have been growing well. The harvest will be given away to local residents.

The savings due to this project are estimated at 30,000 yen (about U.S. $256) per month, as compared with the previous year. However, Hideyuki Bando of the town's General Administration Division stresses that, "it's not a matter of the financial savings, as the employees enjoy working on this project to raise environmental awareness." The town's Cool Biz campaign is expected to lead to environmental protection and cost reduction, in addition to enhancing the friendship with Ishigaki City, improving local residents' health and invigorating the town.



Posted: 2006/07/29 06:38:22 AM
Japanese version