The Business of Trash Returns

Hey, hey my friends.

It has only taken a month for me to write another post...and nearly....well, too long for me to finish the trash discussion.

So, I had explained that in Japan, we have to sort trash between burnable trash, non-burnable, and PET bottles. The rules differ from place to place, but those three categories of trash remain fairly consistent.

In my ward, which is Shinjuku Ward (Shinjuku-ku), we place dirty plastic food trays that cannot be cleaned off properly into the burnable trash, rather than just tossing it with all the non-burnable trash. When I was in Japan nearly three years ago for a month-long missions trip, I was living in a different ward of Tokyo. I do not remember having to put grimy, uncleanable plastics in the burnable trash, we would just clean the trash as best as possible and dump them into the non-burnables.

Another difference in trash is with the drink bottles. Now this is a fun process. With Japan, nothing can be simple (as you can see with the trash system). Of course, one can not merely walk into Mordo....oh, I mean, one cannot merely toss a plastic bottle in the trash. You must tear off the label (which is commonly plastic with perforation on the side) and toss it into its respective trash. Then you must remove the bottle cap and collect it with other bottle caps or toss it with the non-burnable trash. My dorms have us separate the bottle caps from the other plastics, as does my school. Once the cap is off, the bottle must be rinsed and lastly, crushed and compacted.

One more annoyance is drink cartons and other boxes. To toss them, you must tear them open so they lay flat, then bind them with other like items. Of course, if there is any plastic on them, such as tissue boxes, the plastic must be removed and tossed in with the other plastics.

There are other rules regarding trash in Shinjuku Ward, which you can read at this link.

I will have to take some photos of the established trash system at school and on the various trash days, but to the right is the photo I took at my school's festival. This was pretty extreme, but we literally had thousands of people visiting our campuses that weekend. The Waseda School Festival will be explained in another post, by the way.

Anyways, this finishes up the explanation of the trash system in Japan. In the future, I will have a post with photos of the trash system.

I hope you enjoyed this long, delayed lesson.

Until next post, Later Peeps!