One person’s trash is another’s nightmare.

We sometimes hear stories of people lucky enough to find incredibly valuable items or straight-up piles of cash among piles of garbage. However, the opposite is also true, in which people find things far worse than the usual watermelon rinds, egg shells, and even dirty diapers.

Such a case occurred last September, when several glass jars containing what are believed to be human organs were found left in cardboard boxes on the premises of the Osaka Municipal Wholesale Market. There was said to be a “large amount” of these jars, described as similar to those used for jam or coffee, though that would seem to imply that there’s also somehow a “normal” amount of containers with human flesh. What are believed to be peoples’ names were also written on each jar.

A worker in charge of cleaning for the market was the first to discover the boxes and said they didn’t resemble organs exactly, but looked more like tissue that might have been removed during surgery. While he wasn’t sure exactly what it was, he was pretty confident that it shouldn’t be disposed of in the normal way and contacted the authorities.

The police are currently investigating how it got there and are treating it as a case of illegal dumping, possibly by a hospital or research facility. Those kinds of organizations usually hire contractors who specialize in incinerating infectious waste, but there have been cases where the waste wasn’t properly dealt with in order to save money. Last year, a contractor in Miyagi Prefecture simply put it all in boxes and left it to rot in a warehouse, while another “disposal specialist” just tossed it all in a forest in Mie Prefecture.

In this case, it seems as if the wholesale market was chosen as a dumping ground because it already has a lot of organic waste from seafood and produce that might cover up any suspicious odors from the human waste.

Occam’s razor would suggest this is the work of some unscrupulous institution or contractor just trying to save money, but readers of the news online were leaning towards more sinister theories.

“That’s scary.”
“Maybe a bear did it.”
“Maybe it’s from some black market organ trade.”
“I would have just assumed they were fish guts and ignored it.”
“Maybe I’ve read too much manga, but it seems like the waste from some underground doctor doing illegal transplants.”
“It could be a serial killer cleaning out his collection.”
“Hormone!”

I’m a firm believer that when life hands you piles of infectious waste, you turn it into lemonade. So, in that spirit, let’s take this opportunity to learn some fun Japanese etymology. Those who have been to Japan and have a working knowledge of at least katakana script, probably noticed restaurants, yakiniku ones in particular, advertising “hormone” (ホルモン) among their selections to refer to organ meats.

It certainly sounds strange to refer to these meats as “hormones,” especially since the Japanese language also uses that same word for the chemicals used to regulate our bodily functions. That’s because nearly 100 years ago, these meats started to get promoted as being “rich in hormones,” suggesting that eating them would provide more energy and stamina. Even after science found that eating most hormones has no effect on people, the name just stuck around.

However, if you ask someone in Osaka, they’ll likely tell you another story. The prevailing theory among people here is that it’s a contracted form of “horumono” (放るもの), which literally means “thing to let go of,” or in this case, the parts of the animal you’d normally throw away. While charming, it’s a pretty flawed theory, because that would mean restaurants have been actively and successfully promoting their meats as literal garbage for decades.

But I digress. The important thing to remember from this is that we all have to work together to protect the environment by disposing of our human flesh in the proper way. Together, we can make a difference.

Source: FNN Online Prime, YTV News, TBS News Dig 1, 2, Itai News, Yahoo! Japan News, Yakiniku Yoshino, FDM Medical
Top image: Pakutaso
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