Eco Othello Game Spotted in Japan

eco othello photo
Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved. Photo by Noah Bulgaria

Many of you have probably heard of Japan’s tradition for crazy inventions. Recently, even this trend is showing signs of eco shift, this time in the realm of board games. The folks at the Japanese toy company Megahouse Corporation have come up with a way to make Othello (also known as Reversi) play pieces and boards out of the epidermis, or silver skin, of coffee beans, with some polypropylene mixed in to keep players from going for that caffeine fix mid-game. The retail price is 3,675 yen, local tax included.

Megahouse also provides a few other coffee bean eco toys including a version of Jenga called “Eco Balance” and a wooden puzzle called “Eco ABC Puzzle” as part of their “Simple Eco Project” lineup.

The beans, by the way, are provided by the venerable Key Coffee company. Unfortunately, we don’t know if the coffee itself is fair trade or not, so we would definitely like to see Megahouse go that extra mile in the future.

Brought to you by Chris at greenz.jp