The next time you go to throw something away, please think about poor Colby and Theresa, serving and suffering for the Lord in Japan.  Here in Japan there is a very complex garbage system that not only maximizes the use of recycling, but your patience as well.  Allow me to explain.

As you approach the garbage section of your house (yes, section) with garbage in hand, you must first ask yourself, “Can this item be recycled?”  If it cannot, you have it easy and can just throw it away in the ‘Burnable Garbage’ container.  This type of garbage is collected every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week and goes in a special plastic bag that is labeled ‘Burnable Garbage’ (in Japanese, of course).

However, if the item in hand can indeed be recycled, then you have more to think through.  Is the item plastic?  If so, it will have a special plastic symbol on it somewhere (which would be pronounced ‘pu-rla’ in English).  If the item has any bit of paper on it, however, the paper part must be taken off first and thrown in a separate container (will be mentioned soon) and then the plastic may be thrown away.  However, if it has any food particles or oil residue, then it must be thrown away in the ‘Burnable Garbage’ container instead.  The plastics get collected every Thursday of each week and go in their own special plastic bag.

Is the item paper?  If so, it goes in yet another special container, the contents of which are collected once a month.  This garbage would be all your magazines, office paper, cartons, cardboard (please note: corrugated cardboard goes in a separate pile), etc.  At the appointed time each month, like paper items must be bundled together with twine in piles that are not too big, mind you, and brought out to the collection place.

What about bottles and cans?  Glad you asked.  Cans go in a separate pile, PET 1 bottles go in yet another separate pile.  Glass bottles….well, we’re not sure where they go yet.  Make sure to remove the wrappers on bottles and rinse everything out thoroughly (bonus: you do not need to crush the cans – yippee!).  If you have a broken bottle or sharp glass, you must wrap it in thick paper and mark it as ‘kiken’, which means dangerous.

With all this in mind, there is yet another category of items that do not fall into any of these categories.  It is the mysterious category called ‘Non-Burnables’.  This is kind of the catch-all category for things that cannot be put with the burnable items, are not plastic, recyclable paper, bottles, or cans.  Such things could be books, clothing, shoes, metal dishes, handbags, plastic pitchers (we know this from experience), etc.  All of this gets taken out to the collection place at an appointed time each month (but thankfully does not have its own special bag).

Needless to say, throwing away garbage here is a rather complex activity.  One reason is because Japan seeks to be “Green Friendly”, but another even bigger reason is that in this small, condensed country, there is no space for garbage.  Anything that can be burned is and if it can’t then they try to find the most effective way to recycle it.  “That’s good,” you say, and yes, it is good, however it is also tricky and time-consuming.  By the way, did I mention that if you happen to mistakenly throw the wrong thing into the wrong container, your garbage will be returned to you for you to sort through and try again?  So far, Colby and I have not had any of our bags returned to us, except for that plastic pitcher that we threw away with the plastics (good guess, huh?) but turned out to be a ‘Non-Burnable’ item.  In conclusion, the next time you are tempted to complain about your garbage or recyclables, please remember us and count your blessings!

When you think of us and garbage at the same time, which hopefully isn’t often, please pray that we would grow in knowledge and patience in this trying area.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Life in Cross-Cultural Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.