Why do people just dump their TVs? Because many items don't fall under the burnable (燃える）/ nonburnable (燃えない）garbage umbrella. Speaking of umbrellas, you can't throw those out, either. For all that stuff you have to call the town and have them haul your trash away for an additional fee. There was also a vacuum cleaner in the gutter, incidentally. Irony anyone?
Shocking considering how little trash I saw in Itami. I was so conscious of i especially because I didn't want to litter and it was hard to find a public trash recepticle!
ReplyDeleteNow Osaka was a different story. Still relatively clean compared to US cities, but definitely random litter here and there.
In my old job, teams surveying trees in wooded areas would often come upon large random dumped items - but it's easier here to dispose of stuff. I don't get it. PEOPLE!
Near my apartment, someone has abandoned a washing machine, several junk bikes and a few pieces of rusty shelving. I have never bought the idea that Japanese people are all "good citizens", but rather that if they dump trash that usually someone else cleans it up. Big items are different because of the cost involved in removing them, so local shopkeepers or private citizens won't clean up after them unless it's directly affecting their property or line of sight. The aforementioned large trash has been "stored" under a pedestrian overpass by shopkeepers so that it's not in their way, but it has remained there for at least half a year at this point. :-p
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't help that the local government won't remove air conditioners, T.V.s, etc. For those, you have to contact the manufacturers and pay them fees to haul them away. The fees aren't cheap (usually starting from 2,000 yen), so they just dump their trash where they think no one can see them doing it. I think you'd see even more dumping of trash illegally if the population weren't so dense and more people could do it unseen.
I do not support the dumping of trash in any way. That said, this garbage system here is RIDICULOUS. Paul is totally right about the not being able to throw away an umbrella thing. With how prevalent those cheap, plastic, easily breakable umbrellas are in this country you'd think there would be a way to actually get rid of them when they inevitably break. The legal way is you pay the same person who hauls away couches and stoves to haul away your 350yen umbrella. No. I won't do that. That's silly. I pay my taxes dagnabbit!. The only reasonable solution is to leave your broken umbrella in an umbrella stand outside of a convenience store. Either the store throws it away or an umbrella thief gets justice.
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