I will have 5 trash bins for my tiny studio apartment
Well...I'm so tired, but can't help but to write a little about 'trash' today. Although I know that Japan is a country with high environmental awareness, this is the first time I'm exposed to how they do it. It's simple and straightforward, separating your trash!During the orientation today, I was given information about "separating trash." Many countries do separate their trash, re-use, and recycle. But I haven't seen anyone does it as vigorously as Japan. And that's good, I think.
I'm instructed (and given a thin book) about separating my trash. I had to read the book a couple of times to get some idea. And, here's what I understand (please correct me if you know I misunderstand)... I have to separate my trash into 5 groups: paper, plastic, PET bottle, burnable, and non-burnable trashes. And, specifically for the PET bottle (or regular juice bottle), the cap and label go under 'plastic', where the bottle belongs to 'PET bottle' category. This means we have to be careful in separating our trash as well. There's also a specific date for the pick up of each type of the trash, so I'll have to dump them at the site accordingly. So...I'll now have about 5 trash bins/bags for my tiny studio apartment.
Sincerely, I think this is a good thing although it means more work for me in trashing things. If we are used to it, separating trash into 5 categories is only another simple task (at least I believe so)...a simple task which will help the environment tremendously.
P.S. I guess there are many 'voluntary' activities like this in Japan. It could be a potential explanation why Japanese economy is not growing...which is because these 'voluntary' (or household's) activities are not recorded in the GDP measurement.
posted by Bikku @ 8:18 PM
5 Comments:
My goodness, I thought we're doing pretty good here. My housemate is an environmentalist so we've been doing a serious recycle too. But once I've read your blog, man, I bow.
Here we have just 3 categories: newsprint, paper product (like a toothpaste box, 6-pack box), container (bottles and can). Have to check the number of the plastic stuff though...have you noticed that there's a number assigned under each plastic container? If it's lower certain number that means it's already been recycled and no good anymore. And strangely, we can't recycle the bottle cap here! I really don't understand though. And oh! they don't accept soy milk container either. I haven't got to ask for a rationale behind this.
I'm not a keen environmentalist [actually not even a sloppy one :$ ), but I always feel good to see or hear this kind of vuluntary environmental awareness.
Asian economies are far more complex than western ones ka I believe. Under the mainstream economic thought, messing ourselves with 5 types of recycling bin, we might be regarded as 'irrational', but surely it's a Pareto improvement to the world. :)
I've been in Tokyo for almost 3 days now...start to worry about my trash :P
oh yeahh !!welcome to japannn!!haha
should have another one for Can ;)
gluck!!hehe
itz going to be the first blog you have my whole family na.. hee hee.
Nagoya is the one of the biggest trash separators in Japan since it's considered a city fulled of factories. for paper products such as milk boxes, you should rinse, dry, and unfold the box (to make it 1 piece of paper) before trashing a na. all the chemical stuff also goes separately. i remember having quite a nightmare for that when I was in Nagoya, but now.. I think Kyoto should also care about trashing regulations more a.
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