Japan and Garbage

Japan follows and excels in separating garbage. Just look at the following picture, taken at St. Luke’s hospital.

From left to right: bin for combustibles, bin for plastic and plastic bags, bin for PET-bottles, and bin for cans.

And now look at the tray with the three drawers.

The top drawer is for newspapers, the middle one for magazines and the bottom drawer is for mixed papers.

Here in Cologne we separate paper, plastic, and ordinary garbage at the homes, some regions also have organic refuse bins. To do so the bins have signs in German, Turkish, and Russian. We take our glass garbage to certain collecting points, separating into white, green, and brown glass.

The roads are clean. Hauses are clean. People just don't leave their garbage.

I've already written on garbage separation after having visited a Zen monastery in Beijing: Organic Issues at a Zen Buddhist Temple http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/05/organic-issues-at-zen-buddhist-temple.html  

Other blogposts about this travel to Japan:
Small Shrines Along the Road http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2013/04/small-shrines-along-road.html
Cherry Blossoms (桜の花) http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2013/04/cherry-blossoms.html