The Japanese waste handling system

The Japanese have a highly controlled and organized waste handling system. We have received a big poster explaining what we have to do with our waste and we finally got a hang of it­ but it is very time consuming!


Just to give you an idea of it: Everything made of plastic, you need to rinse (!) and then put in the waste bin for plastic products. If it is a plastic bottle, then you only add the rinsed plastic lid to that waste bin, as the bottle goes in a separate waste bin for plastic bottles (you rinse and squeeze the bottle before you throw it out). Is there a plastic item you cannot rinse (like a bag of soy) you put it in the waste bin for burnable products. Newspapers you need to separate from magazines, which again you separate from other kinds of paper. You bundle everything neatly. Even the Tetra Packs, which you should not squeeze but cut open according to a drawing on the poster, then you rinse them and bundle them with the special string you have bought for bundling garbage. Aluminium and steel cans of cause have their own waste bin and you should rinse them, but NOT squeeze them. You find similar rules for glass bottles, gas sprays, batteries and everything else you can think of.

We have bought five waste bins, where we organize the garbage after we have rinsed it, as well as we have three piles of different paper products stacked up in different bags -and we constantly have 2-4 full bags on the balcony waiting for the right day for it to be carried down at the right time. Some types of garbage we must place in front of the building at eight o'clock, other first at nine o'clock.
Did you loose your breath yet?

P.S. We do feel lucky though... Had we been living in Kamikatsu, we would have had 44 different waste categories.