Cool Japan

This is so cool!

Recycling and waste management
Japan may well be a little on the wasteful side, throwing out startling amounts of perfectly good food every single day and sealing consumer products in way too much plastic, but we have to admire their system for garbage collection and disposal.

This of course varies from town to town, but most cities require residents to sort their household waste into distinct categories: burnables and raw waste, plastics, PET (plastic drinks) bottles, glass, aluminium cans, paper and cardboard, and so on.

But how can refuse collectors be sure that people are sorting their waste properly? Surely any joker could just stuff all of their trash into the same bag and sling it out on collection day? Well, most of the bags are either clear or thin enough to see through, with different coloured print on them denoting exactly what can be put inside them, with each kind of rubbish collected only on certain days.

Trying to throw away kitchen scraps in a bag meant for cans? Tut tut. You might get lucky but often it’ll be left behind and marked with a sticker asking you to use the correct bag (and all your neighbours will secretly judge you). But it really doesn’t make sense to try to cheat the system, especially when some towns (each sell their own refuse bags in local supermarkets and, of course, convenience stores) even encourage proper recycling by making bags for the likes of cans and plastics cheaper than more general “burnable” waste bags, so it pays to be green.

Japan still has to mend its wasteful ways, but its approach to refuse management is definitely a step in the right direction and one that many countries could learn from, so we’re all for that.



Read more on: http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/11/09/10-things-japan-gets-awesome-right/#ixzz2yxRGhynD

Via http://www.businessinsider.com/10-things-japan-gets-right-2014-4?IR=T&