In this age of mass consumption where wasteful packaging is overused and people pour perfectly clean water over themselves for attention on the Internet, one of the best ways to counteract our increasingly wasteful society is to simply reuse items that would otherwise be headed for the dump.
But one wannabe environmentalist in Sapporo may have taken his pledge to save the earth a little bit too far when he “recycled” an old Japanese Imperial Army bomb into a rustic, and extremely dangerous, door stopper.
Last month, Hokkaido Prefectural Police got a call from a very worried woman when she realized that a cute-looking door stopper in her house was actually an old bomb. Apparently the woman’s husband never told her that a door in their house was being propped open with an explosive he received as a “gift from an acquaintance” over 20 years ago.
The police immediately notified the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, which sent over a bomb removal team. While the GSDF said they send their team at least once per month to disable and safely dispose of unexploded bombs found in houses, Major Atushi Shirahama with the ammunitions and chemical division told local media that this was definitely his first time seeing one used as a door stopper.
The GSDF identified the bomb as a Japanese Imperial Army 75 mm “Dragon Shot.” The fuse was gone, but the explosive material inside was intact and could have easily gone off with the slightest kick, Shirahama said. The bomb was safely removed without having to evacuate the roughly 50 households in the immediate neighborhood. How it never went off despite being used as a door stopper all these years is nothing short of a miracle.
After Japanese netizens recovered from the shock of this man casually turning a deadly weapon into a door stopper, many wondered what kind of “acquaintance” would give someone an unexploded bomb as a gift. Others, meanwhile, were a bit jealous and wondered where they could get their own artillery shell (minus the explosive material) to use as a part of their new war-inspired interior design scheme.
If you feel the need to be crafty this fall, we suggest something a little less dangerous, like origami. Except for the odd paper cut, it’s far less likely to cause major bodily harm and you can use easily use recycled paper to reduce what goes into your local landfill. Everyone wins and the bomb removal squad won’t need to be called.
Feature image: Wikipedia
Source: Hachimakikou