Garbage…
While mine won`t be as entertaining as Steph`s…I have decided to write about my garbage distress…unlike her`s mine doesn`t end with hot garbage men or me in little shorts and a see through top!
In Japan, well at least where I live, the garbage system is way to complicated for a simple foreigner to understand. I have instructions on my walls in English and Japanese ( I used to have only English but then the bf moved in and he kept making mistakes so I had to get a Japanese copy from the building manager…He was putting clean paper and plastic together…WHICH IS JUST NOT DONE!)
Firstly there are three coloured bags. Oh and garbage is taken out everyday Monday through Friday.
Monday is burnable rubbish. Green bags.
Tuesday is non-burnable rubbish. Also green bags.
Wednesday is plastic, separated into two bags. Clear bags. (One has clean, washed plastic, the other has plastic pet bottles with labels and lids removed…the labels and lids go in the other plastic bag.
Thursday is burnable rubbish again. Green bags.
Friday is paper (clean only), glass (bottles etc must have caps and labels removed), cans (washed) and dangerous garbage (meaning batteries and aerosol cans). All in clear bags except the dangerous garbage which goes into red bag.. The paper must be bundled with red string if it is magazines or boxes. Tape must be removed from boxes…
I live in an apartment that is 25m sq (read: TINY) and half of it is taken up with fricken garbage bins. I have five in total…inside my apartment plus the plastic bottles and non-burnable garbage ( I never have much…) goes onto the floor. Because I don`t have any space for other bins.
Oh by the way all bags have to bought and are pretty damn expensive! The garbage has to go downstairs into the entrance sometime between 9 at night and 9 the next morning. I am quite lucky now, my oya-san (means owner, although she is actually the manager I guess of the building) is not that pedantic about it and I think if people make mistakes she just fixes it (BUT EWWWW…..OTHER PEOPLES GARBAGE) although if it is not in the right bags she usually returns it to the person if she knows who it is or leaves it downstairs with a note on it.
But before, when I lived at the international house when I was university student all hell broke loose when the garbage system for our area changed to the above (By the way the above system is not a japan wide system or even a Tokyo wide system…I can not believe they have different ways of separating garbage in different suburbs but they do!)…before that it was just burnable and non burnable and cans, glass and dangerous garbage was separate. And it was all in the same colour clear bags. Oh and burnable was paper and food and non-burnable was plastic (Now for some strange reason plastic (dirty) is burnable…clean of course must go out with the other plastic on Wednesday!). We had lectures on garbage separation, were given English instructions (the Chinese girl was given Chinese instructions) and I believe there was a couple of powerpoint slide shows. But basically none of us could be bothered. And our oya-san was hellish…SHE WOULD GO THROUGH OUR GARBAGE AND THEN PUT IT BACK IN OUR KITCHENS OR OUTSIDE OUR DOORS IF SHE FOUND SOMETHING WITH OUT NAME ON IT OR SOMETHING TYING IT BACK TO ME or SOMEBODY ELSE.
This is where it got complicated. One guy hated her (the oya-san). And would cut everything up with his name on it tying back to him or leave it and put it into other people`s bins cos he was a lazy fucker who couldn`t be bothered to separate his garbage. HE PUT EVERYTHING TOGETHER. It was a nightmare. She knew it was him but couldn`t prove it. There were letters flying back and forth…Once she even pulled certain things out of the garbage and put them outside his door. It was just gross.
Plus there was 3 or 4 people sharing a kitchen. We were all responsible for our own bedroom rubbish but the kitchen rubbish there was a roster. And none of us ever remembered to do it until it was overflowing and the oya-san would relent and take it out for us. Then leave notes. My biggest pet hate was washing out juice containers then having to cut them up…THAT`S RIGHT….CUT THEM UP.
I believe in recycling. I do. But this is just too much….Especially when you only have such a small space to keep rubbish in your apartment and no big bins in the basement of anything to put it all. If you forget one week your stuck with it…In your apartment…til the next time. (Note: Not all apartments are like this…most big places have basements with big garbage bins)
So next time you think `Oh I don`t want to take out my ONE bag of garbage` or ` God, I don`t want to take out the bin.` think of me…and the fact I have to wake up 15 minutes before I have to just to separate and prepare my garbage for collection!
Ps: Read this for some other interesting points. This is not my area but I too have to do most of the things listed.
pps: I left out the instructions for clothing and shoes and handbags…they don`t all go together but there are different rules for them. Oh and there are special days if you want to throw out fridges, freezes, microwaves etc too.
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Kichijoji must have the most complicated garbage rules in Japan! Shibuya-ku was just burnable/non burnable and then in the basement of our building there were separate bins for cans, PET bottles and glass, and a place to put newspaper so it wasn’t too bad.
(Although one time someone threw out a huge kitchen cupboard in the garbage room, and they put up a big notice in English (there were only maybe 3 apartments with foreigners in them out of 20 or more), I guess it was assumed that only a gaijin could be so stupid as to flout the garbage rules!)
BTW, someone told me that they burn both burnable and non-burnable garbage, but non-burnable goes in a special furnace… do you know if that’s true?
When I was in Korea you had to separate garbage as well, though I believe all the different bags were super, super cheap and available everywhere.
I don’t think they had quite as many rules, but I remember garbage was collected about four days a week. Any furniture you don’t want anymore you just leave on the foodpath and all the foreigners come and collect it to furnish their own apartments
And people here whinge about having to separate bottles/cans/glass and paper into one bin away from general rubbish
I’ve got a headache just trying to read your instructions but thanks for reminding me it’s bin day today!
Oh my gosh… that’s just too much. Seriously. No. I have rubbish issues which I’m determined to win, but they’re much more like Steph’s than an issue with crazy sorting systems… how do you cope!?!
Suzy- In the 23ku`s of Tokyo it seems a lot more simpler. But I am a `shi` not a `ku` and I guess that makes all the difference. Yokohama used to be simple too but it has gotten a lot more complicated. The kindy I`m at now is in Musashino-shi too, but we just do burnable and non-burnable with the kids because it is complicated enough. Only problem is that sometimes the non-burnable garbage comes back to us if we put cans in it…Instead of putting the cans out seperately.
I don`t know about the different furnace. They`d have to be doing something with it though…with all the people in Japan…if they just dumped all the rubbish somewhere then we would be covered in it by now.
Jen- Hehe, furniture on the street here works the same way, but you can only put it out like once or twice a month on certain days. And I think it is only in the 23 ku`s of Tokyo, not where I am in west tokyo. Not sure though. I need all my furnature still!!!
It does my head in sometimes when I don`t have time to do it but most of the time I am fine with it. I am quite used to it now I suppose.
Phil- Glad my rant was helpful for something!
Amanda- I feel for you and Steph though. Crappy neighbours suck!!!!