The Trash Problem
:: Jun 15, 11:55 AM

The way a city takes out their trash is very telling of its people. Last month when I went home to visit my mom in Cupertino, California, in the heart of the Silicon Valley, I noticed that they no longer had to sort their recyclables. Everything goes into one bin. So their sorting task had dwindled to a total of two choices: trash or recyclables. This seemed like some sort of miracle, after years and years of sorting paper from plastic bottles from aluminum and glass. The idea of throwing everything into one bin seemed like a total no-no. Tuesday morning rolls around and I see the garbage collector in action – a huge, Wall-E type of truck four times the height of a Honda Civic. I knew I was away from America for too long when I was utterly mesmerized by the power and might of the garbage truck. A man comes around the side, fits a garbage can into an “arm” which hoists the can up over the truck and into the pile of recyclables the contents of the can go. In the process there are some loose receipts or flyers that fall out into the air, but no complaints, please, this is a modern miracle!

Trash day in Cupertino, California

A week later, I visited my sister in Berkeley, California, the heart of the bygone hippie era. I didn’t feel so out-of-the-loop when I saw that they still had to sort their recyclables. But I did notice that the little green compost bin (which Cupertino does not have) was taking in more than it used to – meat and biodegradable paper products such as tissues, paper towels, paper cups, etc. This little green compost bin is collected by the city of Berkeley. When a year ago, compost only took vegetable scraps, it has evolved rapidly and efficiently, careful not to discriminate against the omnivore’s diet.
In any case, both cities have a recyclables day and a garbage day. Simple enough.

Not so simple in Tokyo. I recently moved into my new neighborhood, where like all Tokyo neighborhoods, taking out the garbage is a job in itself. It requires an amazing memory or the task of posting idiot-proof reminders all over your house. Never mind that you have to sort your trash into three categories and 4 subcategries, each category is taken out on a different day. Please take a look at the chart for our neighborhood:

The pink area on the left indicates combustible items (burnable, yes the trash is burned here). Combustible items makes up most of the trash so it is taken out twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Until last year combustibles items used to not include plastics, which was quite a nightmare. But I don’t know what is worse – not having to sort your plastics from paper or knowing that in some burning facility there are mountains of plastics being burned every week.

The blue area refers to incombustible items (not burnable) including metals, metallic cans and glass. Since these items build up quite slowly, it is collected every second and fourth Tuesday of the month.

Finally on the right side, recyclables are listed, including newspapers, magazines, cardboard, bottles and aluminum cans which are all to be sorted seperately. Footnote – notice the plastic bottle illustration on the left. Residents must remove all paper labels and caps from plastic bottles, rinse them out and crush them before taking them out. Now notice the newspaper and magazine illustrations, these must be bound together with string.
Another footnote is that all garbage items must be taken out between the tiny window of 6 to 8am the morning of collection day. This morning I was cursing myself when I accidently slept in until 8:18am to find that the collector had come by in those 18 minutes I slept in. Cursing myself into shame, I calmed myself down by saying “at least they were combustible items, they’ll come for it again on Saturday.”

Finally, because there are no city-issued garbage cans in Tokyo, people leave their garbage curbside. This means that, bags and bags of all sizes are left on the curb vulnerable to scavengers – black crows. To avoid crows from pecking into trash bags, nets are thrown over the mountains of communal curbside trash. I never know who does it, but the nets are always promptly and neatly folded up by noontime.

Tokyo, Shibuya-ku

For each city it is clear that garbage is a social and cultural issue. When I heard about how my friend Kishi went to Bali and described to me their garbage system (burn all garbage in front of your houses on Sundays) it was clear to me that taking out the trash is something we deal with as citizens of this world.

Cupertino’s no-sort system is genius. It’s what the Silicon Valley does best – create systems. Finding solutions to make life more user-friendly is their schtick and I think they have succeeded.
Planning to put a zero-waste policy into motion in the near future, Berkeley is ahead of its game in progressive garbage systems. It’s more “Think Forward,” than “Think Different.” I can’t wait to see how far they will be when I move back next year.

Tokyo’s intricate garbage’s system displays the best qualities of its people. They all abide by its detailed, sometimes frustrating method that tests patience and cooperation, which is crucial when living in such a densely packed metropolis.

I will spend today figuring out how to come up with the best combination of trash cans for our new home.

1. I love this post- it really brings up an aspect of life that we all have to deal with theoretically, although in reality (we have other people deal with it for us). You bring up a great point about how the way we deal with trash is also reflective of cultural differences and quality of life in general.

   Oh god, in NYC, I lived in a neighborhood where there was just trash everywhere: half-eaten chicken bones on the sidewalk was not an unusual sight when walking to and from the train station. That always grossed me out.

   Plus, everyone litters! It was crazy- once, I saw this cute little old lady on the bus open the window and throw out an entire CUP OF SODA, while the bus was in full motion. A FULL CUP with ice and everything!!! It was CRAZY!!!

   The last house I lived in Brooklyn had a compost bin in the back though. That was totally eye-opening, it noticably reduced my waste by 2/3. Totally awesome!

   On Staten Island (NYC), there’s a landfill called Fresh Kills, which at one point was the biggest landfill in the world. They were supposed to make it into a huge park, but those plans were reverted after 9/11. Imagine- the largest landfill in the world, a stone’s throw from Manhattan!!! How’s that for quality of life.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Kills_Landfill

   Also, in NYC you practically can’t recycle ANYTHING besides regular cans, newspaper and glass bottles. Forget about like plastic containers or oddly shaped bottles. The argument is that recycling costs more than it’s worth- at least that’s NY’s excuse.

   — kayoko akabori    Jul 30, 01:36