sliding door

Have been waiting to capture this...

The garbage people here ride 3 in the cab.

When the two jump out, their door is usually the sliding kind.

I thought this was neat because sometimes the roadways are quite narrow and doors cannot be opened outward.

Do the garbage people where you live have something similar?

eew

One might think that Japan is a clean country...

I thought it was relatively clean.

Until I saw this...

Someone's parent decided to leave a dirty diaper for someone else to clean up.

Of all places to put it too, on top of a police box...whoa?!

bulk items

Do you have to pay for bulk trash pick-up? 

We don't in Hawaii. 

I was amazed at all the different things people throw out.

Some actually look like they threw out EVERYTHING from their houses. 

In Osaka, we have to PAY for everything we throw out that isn't considered "burnable" (there is a list, with pictures, to go off of). 

If the item is bigger than the city issued "non-burnable" trash bag, then it needs to have a 300 yen (about US$3) seal for items up to 1 meter long (a little over 3 feet).

And if the item is longer than 1 meter (over 3 feet), then you need to purchase another seal for another 300 yen (about US$3)..so it needs a total of 2 seals. 

Big items like washers/dryers...lawn mowers would need to be arranged with the city to have them picked them up and hauled away, of course, for a nice sum. 

We've never had to do this YET, though our appliances are coming up on their 10th year and I'm crossing my fingers they will hang on for as many more year as possible. 

I know each country has their quirks but I do think that if Hawaii started to charge for the pick-up of big items they probably wouldn't have to be shipping their other trash off to other states and paying those states to take it.

 

odds & ends

Do you have a disposal? Consider yourself lucky if you do because in most homes in Japan we don't. Most of us have these buckets/baskets in the corner of our sinks. I buy these fine net bags from the 100 yen store to put into the bucket/basket so that it is easy to dispose of. I guess you could also use old pantyhose too. Every so often I scrub down the bucket/basket as well as the metal basket which catches all the other stuff in the sink's drain--there is a slimy black film that forms from the food, oils, and moisture...eww.

Actually this basket reminds me of the times when I visited my grandma & grandpa in Hilo, since they didn't have a disposal nor garbage pick up, we would take the raw garbage and throw it out back onto the plants/veggies and we would burn the burnable garbage. As kids, we weren't allowed to play with or touch matches, so it was a kind of "honor" to be "the one" to light the match to burn the garbage.

Do you have dry heels? Are they scratchy and rough? (I do)

Microplane it! I couldn't believe this product when I saw it on QVC or some television shopping channel.

I bought this at a local shop for 3360 yen (about US$33). This price, I found out is double the amount that Microplane is selling it for in the U.S.

It works. (too gross to show you what comes out of the microplane, though.)

Let's end this post on a happy note...The summer corn is so sweet! It was like eating sugar.

garbage and recycling

Kind of a "stinky" subject to ramble on about...garbage.

When I came to Japan 5 years ago, I had to "learn" how to separate our rubbish. (In Hawaii, we don't separate our garbage and recycling has only started to pick-up due to the deposit of 5cents for every drink container. I was shocked when I went to the supermarket in Hawaii at how many plastic bags they use, almost 1 for each item!) In Japan, there are days that they only pick up burnables, days that they only pick up non-burnables and days that they pick up recyclables. Different cities have different rules for rubbish and recycle pick up.

I'm amazed at how small the trucks are here and 3 guys still ride in the cab of the truck--2 guys jump out to collect the garbage (I miss seeing that in Hawaii!)

For our city, Minoo, the plastic bottles that usually have drinks sold in them (called polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles) have to be washed and turned in to local supermarkets along with egg containers (yes, they are clear and only 10 come in a pack) and styrofoam trays. The trays have to be washed too!

Milk containers must also be washed and cut like this then turned into the supermarket.

Aluminum cans, steel cans and glass bottles, have to be washed and sorted and left outside to be picked up.

Anywhere there are rubbish cans, you can always find them separating the garbage. These rubbish cans were in front of the 7-eleven nearby.

One thing you want to watch out for are the crows! I think they are they most evil birds around...Not only, do they poop on you while you walk under them, but, if you don't cover your rubbish with a net like this.....

He'll flip off any netting that isn't secured down and attack your garbage, looking for something to munch on---kind of like this....

Every resident in Minoo is allowed 20 liters of garbage for each pick up. Our city gives us 120 free garbage bags every April, if we use up our allotment before the next distribution (I think it was September), then we need to purchase more bags.

And you can't use any old garbage bag, it has to be the city's bag or they won't take your garbage! (Believe me, I've had my garbage bag refused!!) You may think that 120 bags should last a long time, but with all the junk mail and excessive plastic bags that are given to you when you buy things (I'm hoping they'll impose a 5yen charge for plastic bags--that should cut back the amount of bags that end up getting thrown out)--you'd be amazed at how fast a 20 liter bag fills up!

In order to cut down the amount of plastic bags that I keep, I have these two gadgets which I found at the 100yen ($1 ) store, it sticks to your refrigerator and you put your plastic bags inside from the top slot and take it out from the bottom slot--this way, if the gadget is full, I throw out the extra bags that I have. I usually use my cloth shopping bag, so the amount of plastic bags that I receive has dropped!

In our house, we also separate our garbage, left side for recyclables and right side for burnable rubbish.

Although, I have been separating and recycling for the past 5 years, I think I still have a lot more to learn about cutting back on waste!