Japan is a model of cleanliness, so where are all the trash bins (10 photos)

How is Japan so clean and there are no trash cans!? With the unprecedented influx of tourists due to the weak yen, thousands of people are asking themselves this question.





Why are there no trash cans?



There are three Japanese women here, the rest are all TOURISTS

This is a common question, especially among Western travelers, who come to the country more and more every year. They have to carry around the most unexpected types of garbage, and the usual observance of respectful cleanliness for their country becomes a test in Japan. I already wrote that in Japan they conducted a survey among travelers about the biggest difficulties they encountered during their trips. And the main answer was the lack of trash cans. 22 percent of tourists named the difficulty of finding a trash can as the biggest problem they encountered during their trip.





Five types of trash bins for sorting in the bushes of Japan

In second place are very few English speakers when you need to ask something - 15%. And overcrowding and cramped places at 13%. A surprising answer, but the Japanese eat on the street much less often! Imagine, tourists buy onigiri at a convenience store or some trendy dessert and eat on the street, then they have to go somewhere and throw them out the trash. The Japanese take onigiri to go, take them home with them, eat there, and sort the trash into bags.



Japanese Cleanman Sets an Example for Children

And they don't suffer from it, because it's not culturally acceptable to eat ice cream on the street, for example. And if you don't take off the wrapper on the street, then you don't suffer. Moreover, eating while walking is considered bad manners. To the point that some cities in Japan have completely banned this practice (which sounds crazy, frankly, such minor things should not be controlled by the state).



A pile of sorted paper trash. Today is such a day

And if the Japanese themselves leave home for a long time, they take an additional bag with them, where they can put all the trash until they return home. Mass tourism creates problems with public trash in Japan. For example, travelers from all over the world come to visit the city of Nara (the same one where wild deer walk right along the streets and ask everyone for crackers). But they can pick up trash from the floor, in 2019, nine deer died after eating plastic trash left by tourists.



Deer often mugging tourists in Nara

Meanwhile, in 1985, trash cans were removed from Nara parks to prevent deer from trying to eat from them. Signs were posted all over the city warning people not to litter, as eating trash kills deer. As the number of travelers increased, it became clear that the signs were not enough, and people did not follow the local custom of taking their trash with them. And guess what? Nara quickly got its bearings and added trash cans on the street. And no universe was shaken, and the city became more convenient! And most importantly, the deer were safe.



Solar-powered trash cans in Nara, brand new

The solar-powered trash cans have the message "Save the deer" written in English. There are a number of videos on YouTube and other social networks from tourists from different countries that are called "where to find a trash can in Japan". Most often, there are small bins next to vending machines, and this is a real salvation. Many tourists are willing to endure it for the sake of an interesting cultural experience, but most people find it not so much annoying because there is nowhere to put the trash, but stupid from the point of view of urban organization.



This is the mess around the vending machines, because there is simply nowhere to put them

"It's crazy to walk around Tokyo all day, taking more than 20,000 steps with your feet, and not find a single trash can to throw away a plastic sandwich wrapper," write tourists from China. She has her own reason. Because yes, THIS IS INCONVENIENT, everyone understands that. But these inconveniences are not invented for tourists, but for locals, so that they suffer. Sounds funny? But this is the only way to force the Japanese, as a society, to keep their trash at home and sort it in their apartments. Only by making it so that they had no choice but to drag their trash home and sort it there at night, did they achieve such a level of recycling.



The Japanese who missed the trash pickup schedule sometimes despair and give up on everything...

Put accessible trash bins on the street for tourists, and the entire Japanese society will immediately breathe a sigh of relief and drag their trash into normal human trash bins. So they all need to be kept in check. There is another reason for the lack of trash bins - a very dark one. On March 20, 1995, members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out sarin attacks on several Tokyo subway trains, killing 14 people and injuring 5,500. One of the consequences was the removal of trash cans from the subway and train stations, so that nothing dangerous could be put in them.



Japanese police sometimes inspect what's in the trash cans

And do you think that the only way to achieve such cleanliness as in Japan is through such harsh trash control and hiding trash cans?