Garbage and Recycling 101

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Jamie

Something that took a long time to get used to in Japan was the complex garbage and recycling system. Everywhere in Japan was different, but where I lived, I had 7 different days: burnable, glass AND metal, plastic, paper, landfill, mercury, and bulk garbage.

If you put plastic bottles in your burnable garbage (which has to be in a clear or semi-clear bag) the garbage collector will put a sticker on it. Now, the next problem, is getting someone to translate the sticker… so I have to bring my smelly garbage to work, and have a Japanese co-worker tell me, “oh you need to take this bottle out, and put it in with plastics”. It was so annoying. Once you get really good at separating your garbage, don’t think it won’t happen. It even happens to my Japanese co-workers. I was lucky that I didn’t have to write my room number on my bags like what my boss has to do. That way I can plead ignorance.

Plastic… what can I say about plastic. To put it simply, there is so much plastic to recycle. In my first year in Japan, plastic alternated each week with paper. The following year, they changed the system so that every Friday was plastic day. More over, the system was extremely strict! For instance, when you buy chocolate chip cookies, EACH cookie is individually wrapped in plastic. Sometimes the plastic inside doesn’t have any mark on it, so you can just throw it away. WRONG! The box itself says “outside: plastic, inside tray: plastic, wrappers: plastic” or sometimes it says “burnable” when you can’t recycle it. You need to peel off the plastic label for pop bottles. What do you do with the plastic label and this plastic bottle? That’s right! You put them in the bag of plastic recyclables together. Oh, and since when is Styrofoam “plastic”? At least you can recycle grocery bags.

I found it strange that I had to peel the plastic label off my pop bottles only then to put them out together. However, it was must more perplexing to put metal and glass together. Most batteries can go out on landfill day, except mercury batteries and florescent light bulbs.

For bulk pick ups, I had to fill out a postcard and list up to 5 items. These include things such as umbrellas, sofas, radios, tables, etc. However, it does not include computers. Computers cost a lot of money to recycle, which is why I had 2 old desktops in my apartment left over from former teachers.

My boss and I got excited whenever we had bulk pick up days, since you could only have 5 picks ups in a year. You have about a 2 week window to apply for a pick up. In about a month, you will receive a postcard with stickers. You must affix the stickers to the bulk items and put them out for pick on the designated day.

Suffice it to say, it was a full time job putting out my garbage.