By SATOSHI MAEDA/ Staff Writer
November 1, 2023 at 08:00 JST
HIGASHI-OSAKA, Osaka Prefecture--Doing the dishes no longer needs to be a chore, courtesy of a specialist company here doing its bit to help the environment.
Tableware produced by DG Takano Co. under its Meliordesign brand only needs rinsing, even after being used to serve greasy food.
The dishes and plates come in a standard white design.
Normally, it is difficult to remove lipstick stains. Water will remove the smear only slightly, while scrubbing with fingers will only cause it to spread.
But lipstick stains on a Meliordesign plate can be easily washed away with simple rinsing, and any last remaining stains simply require a rub with fingers.
DG Takano President Masaaki Takano explained that nanotechnology was used to modify the tableware’s surface to allow water to penetrate the space between stains and the dish, thereby lifting the smear layer.
Neither detergent nor a sponge is required, he added.
The key selling points are less stress at the kitchen sink after meals, a sharp reduction in household water usage and less contamination of the environment due to chemicals.
It took five years to develop the tableware, Takano said.
“It’s meaningless if we can only reduce the number of times to do the dishes with detergent from five to two. It needs to be zero,” Takano said. “We applied a technology that has nothing to do with tableware.”
The company commercialized the kitchenware after repeating experiments to study durability, safety and cost.
Takano commissioned a domestic porcelain manufacture to produce the tableware, hoping to help bolster the industry.
A set of four pieces, including two deep dishes (24 centimeters and 14.75 cm in diameter, respectively), a plate (19.55 cm) and a bowl (12.1 cm), sells for a relatively steep 13,800 yen ($92), including tax.
“Using the plates can make living more convenient and contribute to the environment without paying attention to it,” Takano said.
The brand name was inspired by “meliorism,” an idea that the world can be made a better place through human effort, he added.
The products can be bought through the official website at (https://meliordesign.com/).
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DG Takano Co. President Masaaki Takano displays tableware from the Meliordesign brand in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture, on Aug. 21. (Satoshi Maeda)
