Taking Out the Garbage
You can’t even throw stuff away in peace over here. This is the how-to-recycle sign I saw next to the garbage dropoff “station” in Shirakawa, Fukushima prefecture.
There are no fewer than six color-coded categories of garbage.
And you can’t use just any garbage bag. The color-coded bags include the garbage collection tax for the town you’re in. If you toss a plain bag or a bag from another town into the heap, the garbage collector will not collect it, and you will be shamed in the community (they’ll know it’s you. They always know what the gaijin is up to).
Penn Jillete once said, “if you want to convince someone to do something, just tell them the Japanese are doing it.” It was on his and Teller’s cable show Bullshit, and to poke fun at environmentalists they had some poor lady separate her trash to a ridiculous degree. I thought Penn’s line was a clever play on the common Western belief that when they are not being overstressed, overworked nerds and perverts, everything the Japanese do is better than everything we do. Little did I know that Penn was not joking, and the Japanese actually have been doing this for years.
Discussion topic: Are the Japanese recycling requirements due to (the perception of) good environmentalism or do they just not have anyplace to put the trash?
What does Japan do with its trash anyway? It’s not as if they can send it to New Jersey or Michigan
Perhaps the seemingly ridiculous setup has to do with the way they manage the mountains of trash that are generated each day so that they don’t end up living in a landfill? I imagine a great deal of Japanese garbage is either recycled, reused in some way, or incinerated. The only real way to maximize the amount that isn’t placed in landfills is to make people sort their trash.
June 2nd, 2006 at 5:00 amI guess they must screen for colorblindness for the garbage man job.
June 2nd, 2006 at 6:43 amThis obviously confirms it. (World Cup ‘98 - France)
“During France 1998, the stadium authorities were astonished to find the Japan fans’ seating area cleaner after a game than before. On the final whistle, the fans had picked up all the rubbish they could find before depositing it in the bins by the exit.” (BBC Sport)
See.?? practice maketh perfect
June 2nd, 2006 at 10:10 amMy God, that IS complicated!
June 2nd, 2006 at 2:14 pmTO answer your question, Mr Wake, I think
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:08 pmthe Japanese recycling requirements are due to (the perception of) good environmentalism…..
Is that a regional thing? When I was at Kansai Gaidai last summer it wasn’t nearly that complicated. There were only three categories of trash.
I’m afraid Japan as a whole has completely fallen for the hysteria regarding the environment. As far as I know there is no real debate regarding how much of a problem global warming really is and how much of it is under people’s control.
June 3rd, 2006 at 4:19 pmI would argue that, on one level, Japan’s trash-sorting requirements function as a mechanism for reinforcing people’s willingness to unquestioningly submit to government rules, regardless of whether they make sense.
June 5th, 2006 at 9:28 amCan you clarify that, GB? Are you saying it doesn’t make sense to sort and recycle?
June 5th, 2006 at 9:43 amMy comment was quite clear. But for your sake:
Regardless of whether it makes environmental sense to sort and recycle, forcing people to follow a complex system of sorting their trash has the separate and independent effect of training them to obediently follow government orders.
June 5th, 2006 at 9:47 amTrash sorting and recycling does come under local jurisdiction. The requirements in Tochigi, home of the Japundit Media Complex, are quite different (as in simpler and more lenient) than those of Tokyo.
June 5th, 2006 at 10:42 amEven in Tokyo, the requirements vary in different wards and towns.
June 5th, 2006 at 12:02 pmGaijinBiker, don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?
June 5th, 2006 at 2:01 pmTell me of a country that doesn’t encourage its people “to obediently follow government orders”. I see no totalitarian oppression in trash sorting.
Mandatory trash sorting by itself isn’t enough to render a people submissive and compliant. But it’s one of the myriad ways Japanese society subtly encourages obedience to authority.
And I know trash sorting varies by location. It doesn’t have to be coordinated at the national level for my point to be valid.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:30 pmTell me of a country that doesn’t encourage its people “to obediently follow government orders
All countries may encourage this, but they may not be able to do it as completely and thoroughly as Japan. For example, I don’t think a complicated trash sorting system would last too long in America, in part because people would think “To hell with this. I’m not going to spend all this time sorting my garbage into 10 different piles using color-coded bags just because the Man tells me to.”
Whereas in Japan, people simply follow the rules, because hey, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Follow the rules.
Yes, this is a generalization, as any discussion of a society of millions of people necessarily must be.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:34 pm“people simply follow the rules, because hey, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Follow the rules.”
Questioning authority is one thing, but choose what you’re going to rebel against. Not doing something which is perfectly reasonable and for the common good “just because the Man tells me to” seems petulant.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:11 pmI’m not sure that “perfectly reasonable” even enters into it. I think GB is right that at some point well before 6 color-coded garbage bags, Americans would say, “screw this. It’s freakin trash,” whether or not it’s an environmentally sound sentiment.
I don’t think Koizumi sat in a dark tower and rubbed his hands with glee at the additional garbage rules he was about to enslave the Japanese people with. I think a bunch of provincial officials simply did not conceive of anyone not complying. And they most likely make the people sort their trash to such a degree so they do not have to pay for it.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:32 pmWhether people question this or not is entirely irrelevant. People comply with this particular rule because they want their rubbish collected!
June 5th, 2006 at 4:23 pmThey’re not necessarily displaying sheep-like, vanilla-flavoured tendencies, just a desire not to have rubbish piling up in front of their house!
Hang on - do you really have 6 differently coloured bags?
June 5th, 2006 at 4:37 pmWhile our ‘Trash Calendar’ has 7 colour-coded trash groups, there are only 2 types of bag. The colours only ensure the right group going out on the right day.
Stuff with which I believe GB, overoften, and myself will agree:
–Very few if any Japanese are getting all Abbie Hoffman over garbage collection.
–It is a broad generalization, but Japanese tend to be more rule-followers than Americans.
–The photo of this sign supports the previous point.
–Americans probably would not follow the these garabge collection rules.
Note: I use “Americans” only because that is the non-Japanese nationality that we have been using in the discussion.
June 5th, 2006 at 4:45 pmOveroften: six bags, man. I should have taken a picture of the bags too, but I underestimated the popularity of this topic. The bags are mostly transparent with the lettering and some kind of logo printed in the appropriate color.
One of the many things that suck about this is that some of the bags take a really long time to fill. I do my best to top off that metal can bag, but we end up with partially-full bag of beer cans laying around for several weeks.
June 5th, 2006 at 4:51 pmWell, I do have it easier down here (in Kyushu) then. Just two bags.
I’ve never had a problem with “partially-full” bags of beer cans hanging around for weeks, though.
June 5th, 2006 at 5:00 pmThis has been a pet peeve of mine for a while.
June 5th, 2006 at 8:22 pm