talkin' trash

Let us discuss the ridiculousness that is the Tokyo garbage collection system, shall we?

Garbage is collected every day of the week except Sunday.  That's right.  Everyday.  All over Tokyo.  Maybe they want to ensure that they have a lot of city jobs available?  (Also, it's not like people are in church so I don't know why Sunday was decided as the day of rest, but it is so.  This is for another time, however.)

It's not so much that it is collected everyday that makes the system ridiculous, but rather way items need to be sorted and set out on specific days.  AND no one puts it out the night before.  So you have to get up and put it out before 8 a.m.  Now if you have a job and need to leave the house in the morning, this may seem totally reasonable to you.  But hello, people!  We have no jobs!  We like to sleep in! 

This is the chart provided for us to make sense of the program:

Burnable garbage is the most basic and makes up the majority of our trash.  Maybe this is why it gets picked up  twice a week.  Jeff and I look at it as the first try and our second chance.  And if we miss it again- hey, it'll get picked up in another few days!  Unbelievably, things like plastic and styrofoam packaging are supposed to be put in this trash.



There is recycling, which is exactly what you'd think.  Glass bottles, cans, plastic bottles, etc. each have a color coded box at the garbage collection site for sorting. 

One annoying thing is that you are supposed to bundle your paper and cardboard by type and tie it up neatly before putting it out.  Needless to say, Jeff and I have four weeks of paper recycling in a bag in our house.



Then there is "non-burnable" garbage.  This is basically everything else.  Metal packaging, and um... other stuff.  We're busy acquiring things right now, not getting rid of them, so we haven't dealt with much of the extensive list of "non-burnables" provided to us.  Not surprisingly, we haven't taken this garbage out yet either.  And even if we had enough to bother, it only goes out the second and fourth Tuesday of each month.  We have enough trouble with the stuff you can put out almost any day.  There is a fourth Tuesday next week though.  I think.

Ok, and the last part of this ridiculous garbage collection situation is mostly due to the location of our house.  We are right on the line between two districts of the city: Toshima-ku and Bungyo-ku.  These wards have different garbage collection schedules and drop-off locations (fortunately, however, not different rules - then we'd be in trouble).

As you can see the drop-off locations are directly across the street from each other. Basically, if we forget to put the trash out on one side of the street, we can get up the next morning and put it on the other side of the street.  Unless it's cold and we want to stay in bed.

Mata ne,
Melissa