Throwing Away Trash in Japan

This is by far the most terrifying thing that I have had to do in Japan.  It doesn't seem like it should be very complicated, however in Japan, people take their rubbish very seriously.

One of the first things that you notice about Japan is that it is incredibly clean.  Even in the city where I live, it is rare to find garbage on the streets, and invariably, every morning on my way to work, I run into the same store keepers meticulously cleaning the side walk and even the street in front of their stores.

The second thing you notice about Japan is that there are no trash cans ... anywhere.  Not on the streets, not in the stores, not even in the restrooms ... so how is it possible that they can keep it so clean, if there is no where to throw out a piece of gum?  Well, the answer is that they hold on to their trash & throw it away at home.  Instead of spitting their gum into a tree, or on the street, the Japanese roll it up into a paper & throw it away when they get home.  That is an incredible concept for anyone who has walked in basically any city in the US and has seen all of the exhausted gum on the streets and sidewalks for your friends and neighbors to step in ...

Once you get home however, the process is nothing but straight forward.  They have (and I am not exaggerating) 13 different types of trash.  Each needs to be separated into unique piles / bags, and disposed of on a different day of the week.  There are paper cartons, paper cartons with aluminum lining, plastic products, plastic containers, PET bottles, metal containers, burnable trash, non burnable trash, pressurized spray bottles ... and so on ... each with it's own set of unique instructions on how to bundle and dispose of it.  It is quite a daunting task.

The next fun part is that if you don't separate your trash well enough, it will be returned to you, free of charge, for you to try again next week.  Fortunately that hasn't happened to me yet, and I hope it never does, but I have heard stories from some other people who it has happened to.

At any rate, it seems to work well & it is nice in some ways that they try to recycle so much stuff ... I just hope that I can maintain my record & not have to re package my refuse for the duration of my stay...