Trash talk
Japan is truly a lovely, clean country but one of the things that most gaijins complain about is the trash.
You have to separate your garbage into combustibles and non-combustibles. If you’re feeling even more environmental, you would collect the recyclables (old newspapers, cans, plastic bottles), too. Each category is collected on different days. Fortunately, the combustibles are collected twice a week — Mondays and Thursdays. In the summer heat, your trash can really get stinky. And it’s worse if you live in a tiny apartment where you can smell and hear everything even from your neighbour’s.
As you can imagine, it can get rather troublesome when you’re used to heaping everything into one bin. If you miss one garbage day, it means the rotten stench gets to stay in your apartment for at least three more days. In humid Singapore, I could take the trash out everyday and the garbage trucks came by daily, too. My gripe is there should be one more day for the non-combustibles because they can smell pretty bad, too. For example, the styrofoam plates that come with raw meat — the blood and gore left from the slaying stinks up to high heaven.
I’ve heard stories from other gaijin friends that they would not forget a garbage day or if they miss one they would haul the lot to the nearby convienient store because they clear their trash everyday. The latter is not seen as a first choice solution because you’re really leaving your garbage where it’s not your area. So people actually wander out at 3am in the morning so they can sneak smelly trash out of their homes! A certain friend pointed out she is not the only one who does this. Don’t be surprised to see a few peeps scuttling to the convienie in the middle of the night with a few plastic bags in hand.
Sometimes I get a bit lazy and slip shot — I would throw a piece of chicken skin or apple core into the non-combustible bag because I couldn’t be bothered to get yet another plastic bag at that point in time.
But today, while I was having lunch with an old friend and his Japanese wife, they told me that people are hired to investigate the contents of all our garbage bags to make sure they were indeed separated. What a horrible job! But also, wow, what a serious commitment to the environment…
Said Japanese lady also told me that in her home town you have to write your name down on your trash bag. Why? If you had anything that wasn’t supposed to be in that category, this bag will be sent back to you to re-distribute. Good grief!
To my Singaporean mind, this level of anal-retentiveness is mind boggling (we’re not a very green country), but it really does make sense to be considerate, so that you make the garbage folks’ lives much easier. In a time where we have something like Live Earth going on, this is truly the right attitude to have.
I felt so guilty so I’m now separating my garbage with renewed vigour and caution.
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