Trash

The trash here is highly sorted and separated.  I suspect it is because there are no big landfills to swallow all the refuse, especially here in snowy Hokkaido. Everywhere I go there are receptacles for divided trash and recyclables.

At the University

At the Haruki

Home trash is collected from these wire mesh bins. 

Different trash is picked up on different days of the week. The problem is we haven’t figured out what day is what trash. There is a sign telling what to put out on what day, but we don’t read Japanese.

Ted thought he had it figured out, then the the pickup schedule changed the beginning of December. There was a woman handing out these trash flyers.  I thought it was a sales ad, but it is a sheet of directions for the trash.

 There are burnables and non-burnables and a separate day for plastic food trays.  In addition, there are cages for recycling, again, all separated: aluminum cans, steel cans, brown glass and green glass and clear glass, plastic bottles with labels removed.

We can look at what other people have put out and try to follow their lead, but sometimes it is hard to tell if they’ve put out non-burnables or plastic trays, or then again, is that paper burnable trash? I really need to learn to read!