Public Service Announcement #2: Time to Take Out the Trash!

~Trash is something that Americans devote little thought to. Actually, I imagine that most people deliberately spend as little mental energy on it as possible. Who wants to be concerned with trash, other than sanitation engineers and wives who complain to their husbands to take out the garbage? We just take the bag out once a week, throw it into the can, and it disappears the next day. Wow, magic! Makes me wonder what those stuck-up Cary subdivisions with pseudo-British names would look like after a few weeks without trash collection service. Oh what a thin veneer civilization is...

Like so many other things, it's different here in Japan. The proper disposal of garbage (or gomi in Japanese) is very complicated and bewildering to foreigners such as myself. Garbage must be separated based on what kind of garbage it is, and each type is taken away on a different day. For example, one category is "burnable trash", and another is "cans and bottles". Here are just a few rules from the arcane system they use here in Nagaoka:

1. Burnable Trash is collected on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
2. Non-Burnable Trash is collected on Tuesday
3. Cans and Bottles are collected on Thursday
4. Plastic is collected every weekday
5. ...and my personal favorite: newspapers, cardboard, and magazines are collected on the the third Thursday of each month.
   

That's just a sample of the rules, and they get even more bizarre. Burnable and Non-Burnable trash must be placed in special colored bags, which have to be purchased at supermarkets and convenience stores. I thought this was ridiculous until I learned that the bag sales help finance the collection of trash.

^ The side of a yellow bag for Burnable trash. As you can see, the bag is marked with the things that you can place in the bag: food scraps, certain clothes, paper food containers, photographs, small paper waste, certain toys, etc. These bags are sold in different sizes; I buy smaller bags, and a set of ten sets me back a little over a dollar. When you think about it, that's less that 10 cents to get rid of a bag of trash, so I can hardly complain.

Burnable trash is sorted and burned at incinerators in each city. In Nagaoka, the heat generated by the incinerator is used to warm swimming pools and hot baths in the nearby "Ecotopia Kotobuki", a public facility. Brilliant!

^ Blue bags are for non-burnable trash, which includes broken glass, small household appliances, small electronics, pieces of metal, etc. This is the only trash that is actually dumped in landfills. The blue bags are twice as expensive as the yellow ones, because the trash is more difficult to dispose of. In the almost five months that I've been in Nagaoka, I've used only two small blue bags. Larger trash such as futons and television sets must be specially disposed of; you have to call the sanitation office and schedule a removal. You also have to pay a disposal fee. For televisions, it's ~$30.

Anyway, cans and bottles must be placed together in any clear plastic bag. Larger paper, magazines, newspapers, and cardboard must be bundled together and tied with cord. Unfortunately, I couldn't find and cord, so I cheated and used rubber bands (they still collected it). Still, that kind of trash is piling up because it's only collected once a month, and I usually forget. Remember, I'm an American who's been culturally conditioned not to think about these things.

One odd thing I've noticed in Japan is a conspicuous lack of trash cans. On every sidewalk in America, there's a trash can every ten feet or so. In malls, they're all over the place. In Japan, however, there are none. Seriously, there's no public trash cans. If you have any garbage, you simply have to take it home with you. The exception is the recycling containers found near most vending machines, a refreshing change from when I was in college and couldn't find recycling containers anywhere.

Actually, I did find a trash can once, or rather, it was shown to me. The teacher that I replaced took me to the can and reverently imparted the knowledge of its existence, making me swear only to use its power for good (okay, so I made that part up). Sadly, it was removed only a few weeks after I arrived in Nagaoka. I think they're on to me...

If you think the above rules on trash disposal are extreme, wait until you read this. For me, the most annoying trash to get rid off is drink cartons, the kind that hold juice or milk and are made of plastic-coated cardboard:

^ It's actually illegal to throw these in the trash(!). How, you ask, does one get rid of them? Here's what you do: 1) wash the carton thoroughly, 2) cut it open and spread it flat, 3) let it dry, 4) take it to any supermarket and place it in a specially-marked bin.

Why the bizarre rules? The reason is twofold. First is that Japan consists of small, mountainous, heavily populated islands. There simply isn't much room for gigantic mounds of trash like we have in America. Besides, tourism, both foreign and domestic, is an important part of the economy, and the Japanese don't want to spoil the few natural areas with garbage.

The second reason is more opinion than fact. The Japanese culture is one of extreme social responsibility and fear of embarrassment/ridicule. No one wants to look bad, so everyone makes an effort to properly dispose of trash. If you drive down any highway in America, it's littered with junk and cigarette butts. In Japan, they're spotless, both because of more frequent cleanups and the simple fact that people don't throw nearly as much stuff out of windows. It's rather nice, actually.

Yes, the trash system is crazy, but in the end I think it's a good thing. Because taking out trash is so much of a hassle, people produce far less of it than in America. Much of the trash is recycled or used for beneficial purposes such as heating pools. The slogan of 'reduce, reuse, and recycle' that most people ignore in American is deeply embedded into the culture here, and it really makes a difference.

So the next time you throw that bag of gomi into the garbage can, think of ways that you could cut down on what you throw out, or more things that you could recycle (I'm looking at you, college students!). If you don't recycle, get a recycling box and use it. I'm not saying we need crazy rules like they have in Japan, but we definitely need to change the way we get rid of garbage in America or the country will be covered in it.

Oh, by the way--the rules are all changing in a few months. The city is adding green bags to the current system (I have no clue what they're for) and changing some of the disposal days! CURSES!!!
~Oyasumi.