How To Organize Your Rubbish - Japan Style

AH! Gomi day! The bane of all foreigners in Japan. Where I live now is fairly relaxed, but in Numazu, just down the road a bit, the system is properly hardcore mental - you have to wait for a specific night once a month, and save up everything which can be recycled for that night. Then you take it down to a collection point and turf it all in to the correct bin.

THE CORRECT BIN! Or the old men who are volunteering to help out the community will get very angry indeed. Oh how they deserved their foreigner bestowed moniker - the gomi nazis.

My problem isn’t really getting everything sorted - although I have run afoul of the authorities once for putting my cans in a clear plastic bag, instead of a clear plastic bag with “Fuji City” and “Cans” written on it.

My problem is remembering to put out my rubbish on the correct day. I have a nice sheet from the local council, but the dates are pretty small on that.

I found some sticker sheets in the cupboard today and decided to knock up some little stickers for the calendar. There’s a higher chance of me noticing that.

I understand that every area is different, so you might not find the sticker you need here -

burnables (one sheet, as this happens two days a week round here, and I always forget about Thursday)
broken glass (Mrs. Boyle has fingers made of butter - mind you,this comes in handy when making sandwiches)
newspapers & cardboard (or, alternatively, Pizza La fliers, and empty pizza boxes)
bottles (they accept glass and PET in Fuji, natch)
cans, including empty aerosols (Yes, folks, believe it or not, but in Japan you are encouraged to pierce these when empty)

If these are of any use to anyone else, download away :
Burnable gomi stickers
All other kinds

I printed them out on hagaki size sticker paper, using Windows print wizard to speed things up a bit. Came out nice.

Enjoy.

Monday, December 4th, 2006 How to..., Japan, Japanese Culture, Things To Do Trackback URL for this entry