Becoming a Japanese Waste Management Specialist 

My friend who lives in an apartment in Tokyo told me that one time he was too lazy too to sort his waste so se didn't obey the waste collection schedule, i.e. monday for plastic waste, wednesday for paper, etc. Instead he just put all his waste into one bag and put it into the communal bins before leaving the apartment. What happened was, when he got back later in the evening, he found that his garbage was already sitting in front of his apartment door. Apparently the trash pickup guys went into his garbage bag and found his address from a food delivery receipt which he put inside that bag. Lol.

the paper collectors seemed very happy with their jobs! thats so good to see!

This is a RE-UPLOAD. Had to block out the recycling company's info. New video coming very soon.

Japanese people for the most part take recycling and nutrition seriously so they learn very early. Their culture fascinates me and seem totally awesome.

all the world needs to learn from the japaneese how to recycle!

what a great dad!! i love it when parents spend time doing productive / real- life / educational activities rather than just giving them mobile apps and computers games !! your kids will be mad at u for a day but appreciate it in the long haul. what an inspiration !!

When she asks "How do you recycle where you're from"? And most of us starts feeling guilty!!

and here in my country people can't even simply put the garbage into the garbage can :(

wish there is proper recycle system and education in my place. we got a long way to go to catch up with the japan.

In Germany in the citys every house has a bin for paper/cartons, a bin for waste, a bin for organic waste, and a bin for recycleable waste.. Many bottles have "Pfand" which means that if you buy the bottle you have to pay about 8-25 cents for that bottle and when you bring it back to the store you get that money back (So most people don´t throw them away, but recycle them) You can throw away batteries at almost any store that sells batteries or at special bins that are spread accros the city.. Glas and Cans are also put in special containers which are spread accros the city.. Normaly you can reach one in 5-10min walk of your house If you don´t live in the city you also have to throw away your paper/cartons, and recycleable waste into containers, which arre often far away from your house (if you don´t have a car) And many people outside the city have a "Komposthaufen" where they put al their organic waste on and then it turns into earth wich can be used in the garden

I really am a big fan of the channel and you and your lovely family. What a great father and what a great way for your children to learn things and teach the world about their culture. Wish there were more channels like this . Love and light !

Hello! I love your videos! I am from Norway, an island 100km south of Oslo, the capitol city. We are recycling a lot, like paper/cardboard, plastics, glass/metal, and biodegradeble/compostables. Outside our house (most people in this aerea lives in bungalows or 2-3 appartment houses with gardens around, we have garbage bins. We have 5 different! Orange lid is for glass and metal, brown lid is for food leftovers, white lid is for plastics and green lid is for the rest. Once a week a large truck is collecting from the bins, but only the food leftovers gets collected every week. The rest gets collected every 3 weeks, on a rotating schedule. Things like paint, batteries must be delivered special places. We fill up the car every now and then and drive to the local recycling station, where we deliver broken electric products, big heaps of plastic or paper, broken furniture, building materials and so on. All is free to deliver, no fee. BUT you have to pay a little fee for things that are not sorted, as if you fill up a big garbage bag with unsorted stuff, you have to pay for each bag. I love the way our recycling works here!

In the UK we have national recycling schemes, but it's a lot simpler. You have two (or sometimes three) large outdoor bins for your rubbish. The black bin is for general waste. The blue bin is for recyclable waste, like plastic, paper, cardboard, cans. You don't need to sort the recyclable stuff into categories, I believe there are people who do it at the big centres where it all goes, but you are supposed to clean all bottles and cans. If you have a garden, you may also have a third brown bin, which is for compostable waste, so garden trimmings, vegetable cuttings, tea bags, shredded paper etc. If you put the wrong thing in the blue bin, they won't take it. Instead you get a big red sticker on your bin saying what items cannot be placed in that bin, and you have to empty it out for next time (I get angry because SOMEONE in my area keeps dumping general rubbish in my blue recycling bin, which means they don't take it and I have to fish out all their nasty rubbish) The blue bin and black bins are taken every two weeks, so one week it will be the general waste collection and the following week will be the recycling. I don't know how often they take the brown bin because I don't have one. Stuff like glass can't be put in the blue recycling bin, you have to take it to bottle banks. Often community centres and supermarket car parks have these, but I think for convenience most people just chuck glass in with the general waste for the black bin, rather than remembering to load up the car and take it to the supermarket. There are usually also banks for textiles there, too. For batteries, in some shops I've seen battery recycling points for you to leave your dead batteries. For plastic bags, to try and limit the amount people use, shops must charge at least 5p per bag. Many supermarkets will also take back any old plastic bags to recycle. And for big waste, like old furniture etc, you need to contact your local council and pay a fee to have it collected. Some places don't do the "kerbside recycling" as it's called, though - my sister used to live in a big tower block, and they just had giant communal bins like dumpsters that everyone used. There weren't any separate bins, so if you wanted to recycle you had to sort it all yourself and take it to a recycling centre yourself (which I don't think many people do... cos hey, people are lazy lol).

wish the US would be this orderly

Japan has crazy recycling policy, everyone's expected to participate. Sad , it's not the same everywhere.

I APPLAUD THE JAPANESE FOR DOING THIS FOR OUR PLANET

Woah, loads of work! In the UK, I'm provided with green bags (recycling) and pink bags (rubbish) by my local council, everything goes in one of the two, and they are collected on alternating Mondays. Paper, cardboard, glass, metal and plastic go in the green bag, and you can also recycle bags of clothes, small electrical items and batteries separately. Most of my waste goes on recycling day. I put mostly old food, sanitary products and waste from my pets (poo, hay and shavings) in the pink bag. You can also put food in a food bin for composting, but I don't bother as I live alone so I don't have much. And you can recycle garden waste (for an extra fee), but I don't have a garden. You can have large items collected for a fee, or take them to the dump for free.

That's why Japan is so clean

this reason on its own without anyother reasons can make me love Japan 💕💕

That it incredible!! Imagine how better the earth would be if every person recycle like this Japanese girl!

What an amazingly informative video! Love seeing what your life is like! Your family makes my heart smile :)

In Indonesia, sometimes it's different for every city to separate garbage in many categories, sometimes cities government provide trash can in 5 categories, another could be 3 or 2 categories in public area, like in the park, downtown, market, etc... but here's the reality : the garbage collector by government put it in one place , so the trash categories didn't usefull at all here lol... for neighborhood or household trash, we put the trash in one.... also, in some region there's a bank for the trash, so, you bring the trash to the bank, and you get the money in to your account ... and some people here save the trash and separate them, for box, glass, plastic, and wait for tukang rombeng (private trash pickers) accross your home, so you can sell your waste to them and make a deal then get money... sorry for my bad english lol

I love this video, I am big on recycling here in the United States. It is a lot simpler here with less rules. But here is how I recycle. When I have aluminum cans I rinse them out, dry them and crush them. I put them in little plastic bags(we usually save these up for a year, then turn them in at once and get money for drinks at a party) With plastic bottles same thing, Rinse, dry , and crush then put in a bag. When the bag is full, I tie it up and put it in the recycling bin on my porch. ( I also put plastic pieces or bags in there too) I also rinse glass bottles/jars and put them in the recycling too. With any cardboard boxes in the kitchen, I break apart and then leave in the kitchen in a certain place till I transfer it. Once a week I put everything in the recycling bin on my porch downstairs and in the big city issued recycling bin that a truck with a claw picks up. (yes all different categories goes in one big bin and to a sorting center) Anything that is not recyclable goes into my green garbage bin that the city collects the same way. If something does not fit in the bins, then you can request a special pick up(same with any tree branches from yard work or after storms) Some people also have a compost pile for their leftover food and eggshells but that is not possible at my apartment.

Hi Guys, I was in Japan last year and realised that Japan is a very different world and way ahead of the rest of the world in every imaginable aspect of life. I wish to be able to move to Japan ASAP. I've been watching video's on youtube about Japan and MUST say that you deserve a big well done for making the best, most useful and informative video's without commercialising your good job, very honest and dignified. Keep it going. wish you all the best

We have to implement this system to the whole world to make this earth we know...Cleaner

Our country (The Netherlands) can learn a lot from yours. Our stuff does not have to be washed out. We have a container for paper, one for greens (waste food if you choose to throw it away and garden greens). A big plastic bag for plastic, but since a short time milkcartons can go in there too. Also all the caps go into the same bag for plastic. And the last container is for like tissues, tin cans and everything else. This is what we collect at home. Which the garbage trucks pick up once a week or 2 weeks. Different days for different garbage. For things like batteries there are places/bins to 'dump' them around supermarkets. Oh and outside there are places where you can throw all your glass away, sorted on color.

It looks like a good recycling practice! In Brisbane where I live we usually have two types of waste bins for household purposes- general waste and recycle items. We don't need to sort them out, we just bin them.

Hi Greg and Aiko. Thank you for showing this video. I'm moving to Tokyo in a few months (as my husband now works there) and this is tremendously helpful since waste management is not thoroughly and efficiently done where I'm from. I hope I'd bump into you when I move there!

This is so cute to see you and Aiko do things together! It warms my heart! Visiting Japan is the top thing on my bucket list! It’s things like this that gets me interested in Japanese culture, and this channel is very informative! I just wanted to show my appreciation for your channel!

I have been enjoying all of your videos, and learning much about Japanese family life, culture, and society. These are nice and compact, very entertaining and educational. While I also enjoy the NHK Documentry Series "Japanology Plus One", I find your channel much easier to watch and learn from. But this episode on recycling, is by far your best one yet! Thank you! I live in NE Ohio, in the US, and we have been recycling here since about 1970. It was voluntary and you had to transport your sorted paper/cardboard, glass, and metals to a local Recycling Center. Plastic recycling was not readily available until the late 1990's. But now most communities offer (or even require) garbage sorting and recycling services. (Here in Akron, we must separate all garbage into paper, glass, metal, plastic, and solids, but they must all be placed inside a large plastic garbage bin that is put on the tree lawn once a week for collection by the city using a truck with an arm that picks up and dumps the container automatically.) Living by the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) is a great way to minimize one's footprint. Great video! Please keep 'em coming!

This video is awesome! Thank you for making clips like this.

We used to have a quite complicated recycling system around where I live. Now usually, here in Germany trash is seperated into plastic, paper, anything from plants (banana peels, left over coffee powder from brewing coffee, etc.) and any other forms of trash. These are picked up at the house and collected in large containers for which the cities pay and that are always just being emptied and then reused. You do have some extra parts like glass (which you can just throw into containers that are usually in the parking lots of supermarkets and that are seperated by colour - white, brown, green - you usually just take your empty bottles/jars with you when you go shopping and throw them away). Then we have Pfand for bottles and cans, for example, when you buy a bottle of soda you pay more than the actual price of that bottle and when you are finished drinking you return it to the shop and get that money back. The bottles are then cleaned and reused by the companies who sell the bottles and cans (this is also the case for beer). Now for big garbage (branches from trimming the hedges of the garden, but also broken electronic devices like washing machines) and toxic waste (like batteries) you have to go to a place called 'Wertstoffhof', which is basically a place that collects the trash from one area and then brings it to places where it can be seperated further or reused or recylced. And that's where the fun part starts. In my area garbage used to be handled in a way so these containers that are being emptied were too small on purpose so that people would have to use the full potential of the 'Wertstoffhof'. So you would at your home seperate everything into the different waste groups (so basically sorts of plastic (PET,PE,PPT,etc.), glass, paper, other paper, carton, etc.), people ususally just collected the trash in the different groups, and then you would drive that to the 'Wertstoffhof' and there put it into the different larger containers for the seperate waste groups. They got rid of this system a while ago, but it's actually quite sad because looking back it wasn't that much effort and definately more environmentally friendly.

In few states of malaysia, we just started this program. I really hope people will take time to do this sorting garbage thing seriously here. If we do together, we can be like japan too :)

This video was really helpful, thank you! I really love your channel! Your videos are very informative and even though they are fun to watch, they are not just mere enternainment but really useful to learn about how to survive everyday life in Japan. I really appreaciate your hard work and your openness to share your private life with us. Thank you and keep up the good work! :)

In America you usually have a green or blue bin next to the garbage bin outside. Inside is usually either plastics or papers but most of the time there's both lol. Glass bottles are usually done differently I think but most are just thrown away or used again for other purposes like holding grease after cooking, pencil holder, pot, etc.

I'm moving to Japan soon and I needed this. Thank you so much, this was incredibly helpful

One thing a few of my friends thought was odd was that in my state we pay a $0.05 deposit for each bottled/canned drink we buy that can be returned, it gets added on to your total purchase price when you pay, and we then return them to the crushing machines similar to the one in the video, and then you get $0.05 for each one you return, my cousin brings hers in pre-crushed in her state and is paid by weight, so she was very fascinated by the bottle return machines. We have a recycling service that comes to the house, I haven't looked into whether or not it's free in my town, but I generally procrastinate, so I take mine in by driving it down to the recycling center myself, since it can end up being a lot of stuff. Some things are lacking and I feel like a few things just aren't recycled here that are able to be in other countries or states.

You are such a great dad, I love these videos! Congratulations for the amazing kids!!

Where I live in the US my city has curbside recycling along with the usual trash pickup. It used to be small blue bins, but now everyone gets a large, bright blue rolling bin the same size as the dark green trash bins. Unfortunately, I live in an apartment that doesn't get curbside service but instead has a contracted company that provides a dumpster for our garbage. That means I also do not get curbside recycling and have to take my recyclables to a city provided facility. There used to be more around town, but there are fewer now and none are convenient for me, but I still do it. We can recycle glass, various plastics, various metal cans, cardboard, and paper. In addition to keeping those things separate, we usually have to separate different colors of glass. Usually mine looks a lot like yours in this video by the time I finally decide to take it in! :D Really enjoying your videos, by the way. Discovered your channel a couple of weeks ago and started watching. Thanks!

I'm going to have so much fun with this!! :D Thanks for the tutorial! 💞

japan the place that I really want to go to

Very love this video, it's so inspiring me :) thankyou for sharing this video!

In Germany we recycle a lot too, but not at the level presented here. Communal Services here hand out severel types of (large sized) trash cans to households. Somewhere between 120L and 240L each. There are cans for "Green"/Biological garbage, for Paper / Cardboard and for "Household" / Misc. burnable trash that cannot be directly recycled easily. On top of that there is what we call the "Yellow Bag" - which are thin yellow pastic bags handed out by the community to collect all sorts of plastic garbage. All those types of garbage are collected about every 2 or 3 weeks at different times. Large scale items like furniture is collected with no cost at a few dates around the year but needs to be registered beforehand. That leaves garbage we actively have to return/recylce. First there are White Glass, Green Glass and Tin where there are large Steel Containers strategically placed around town for each of those types of garbage. The Containers are emptied regulary into huge garbage trucks. Then there are batteries which can be returned in super markets (which generally have a return box for those) or directly to the comunal services waste management center. Those waste management centers in general are the place to return any electronics garbage or bigger items when there are no retrievals scheduled. Other Dangerous/Toxic substances are also reclaimed there. For some large scale garbage or high quantities which are not common for a normal households the communal services charge some extra money, which varies based on the town you are from. As most everywhere else there is of course the concept of returnable bottles and tin-cans. Those items are marked accordingly and are returned mostly at the place they are bought, but can be returned at most medium to large sized super markets as well for quite a sizeable fee. One Way items (Bottles,Cans) are 25 Cent and Reusable Items are 15 Cent each. (1Cent around 1Yen)

In Scotland we have 5 different type of bins. Purple is for glass, green is for regular waste, brown for garden waste, blue is for plastic and newspaper. Finally grey/silver is for like fruit or eggs and it comes with biodegradable bags. But we don't have to clean anything only if you choose to which we do.

In my elementary School in Japan we had to cut open the milk cartons everyday after lunch

lol that trash guy that called him self Justin bieber😂 I'm dead

In Seattle, WA, in addition to garbage bins we have recycling that you just chuck all clean recyclables into without need for sorting (we used to keep glass separate, but they changed that a few years back) and we also have yard waste/compost bins into which we are heavily encouraged to toss all compostable food waste. Sorting like this (trash, recyclable, and compostable) is even required by the city in restaurants. Rules aren't quite so strict outside the city though.

Great video. It's so inspirational how they do it in Japan. Many people often think that recycling is really impossible but it's just so amazing how Japanese people devote their time in this.I Will subscribe to your channel, your videos are amazing and inspirational.

In the UK more specifically the count of Leicestershire we have a black wheelie bin for non recyclable trash , a brown one for garden waste. A red box for plastic and metal objects , a yellow bag for cardboard and a blue bag for paper. We usually put our black and brown bin out one day and the rest on a different day and a special recycling Trash truck with different compartments on the sides picks all the garbage up.Batteries get recycled in little boxes that are usually found in stores. Different counties have different ways of recycling. near stores you can find recycling bins where you can take your trash which people who's area doesn't have special recycling regulations can take their trash.

I'm SO glad my recycling company takes it all together :D It just has to be clean and put into a clear plastic bag (that they give you) and set outside your door on pickup day. I make sure to cut up things like the ring around a gallon milk jug or other packaging so that an animal can't get stuck inside and get hurt/malformed.

I love recycling, it was fun to watch your system.

I love this! In America, we have 3 bins: garbage, recycling(papers, boxes, bottles, etc), and yard waste. However, lots of stuff just go straight into garbage out of laziness 😖

This video honestly makes me feel a lot better. I'm applying to jobs to teach English in Japan and the recycling program was like the one thing I'm always freaked out about because I know its so meticulous. So seeing someone that lives there say "I don't always know what i'm doing either" gives me comfort.

great effort put just keep everything in place...not to mention an impressive way to manage waste

In Warsaw, Poland people have so called "kitchen waste"(soiled or oily paper, vegie peels, leafs, etc.) which goes to the local compost site, "dry waste", which is clean plastic and paper , small pieces of wood, art supplies, etc. which goes mainly to recycling and there are also separate glass containers. We used to have glass separated by colour - no colour and colour - but I haven't seen them in years, so I guess it was a bit too much hassle. Old batteries can be left in local shops and malls, old tablets and medicine is collected by local pharmacies. Each block of flats has their own collection space for all of these and 3-4 times a year we get a huge container at the back door for other "large-size trash" - old furniture, metal scraps, pipes or house appliances, even though the latter can be left in any appliance shop when you buy a new item in it, like an oven or a fridge. There is a law they have to recycle it for you if you ask. You can also call a special company, that collects "electrical waste" for you; they do it free of charge. They get money for selling components and metal. We also have people scavenging, mainly for soda cans and plastic caps, but these we usually donate locally for different purposes. And we do have weekly rounds, too. :) Only with a collection area we can take out the trash anytime we want. People living in houses have to remember out this, though. My parents who live in a small town have a rigid schedule on that. If you forget about it - you have to keep it in your house and wait for the collecting day again.

Wow it's amazing how well they recycle! Over here in Australia everything that's "recyclable" all just goes in one bin and isn't separated from paper, glass or plastic it all goes in one! I think we could learn something from this!

Hello Aiko! Thank you for making another interesting video. I'm from the Netherlands and we recycle a lot of things as well. But the rules for recycling are much easier: - paper and cardboard are collected seperately. We have to put it in a cardboard box or paper bag or tie string around it. And every other week it's put out in the street and collected. Simple! In my neighbourhood it is always collected on a Monday. We also recycle quite a bit of cardboard for art projects. Oh and we use it to make toys for our hamsters. - the county gives every household special big plastic bags and we use them to collect all plastics, milk packets, juice packets and all kinds of tins. It all goes in one big bag. We are not required to wash pet bottles or rinse out shampoo bottles or anything! Also we don't have to take the label off a pet bottle and we don't have to recycle the cap separately. Milk packets don't have to be taken apart, I just flatten them so the big plastic bag doesn't fill up too quickly. In my neighbourhood it is collected every other Wednesday. Also, supermarkets have machines where you can put large pet bottles, like from fizzy drinks, and you get the 25 cent deposit back for handing in the bottle. - glass jars are collected as wel, on the same day as the big plastic bag. We have to put it outside in a plastic bin that the county gives to every household. In this plastic bin you can also put small electrical appliances, as long as they fit in there. I don't use this bin because I can take my glass jars with me to the supermarket and there is an area outside where you can put the jars. They are big bins, one for clear glass, one for green glass and one for brown glass. I re-purpose some glass jars, I use a small one as a sugar pot for instance, and I keep spices in another one. - every city has a recycling yard where you can take big stuff, like old carpet, broken electrical appliances or broken furniture for instance. - 'green' waste, like potato peels, eggshells, onion skins and orange peels and garden waste is collected in a spcial bin and collected every other week as well. We are not allowed to put leftover raw or cooked meat in there. - all other waste is collected in a garbage bag that you can buy in every supermarket. If you live in a house with a garden the county gives you a wheelie bin to put your garbage bags in and again, it's collected every other week. Households pay a kind of tax on it. I live in an apartment building and I don't have a wheelie bin. Instead there is a collection point in the parking lot. I use a pass to open it and every time a put a garbage bag in it I get charged al small fee, like 1,60 euro's. Where I live, recycling shops/ charity shops/ second hand shops will often come to your home to pick up big items you don't need anymore. I like that a lot because I don't have a car. Well, this is how recycling works where I live!

I remember every time we travel to Asia, there are always disposable items (most notably packaging from purchasing anything from a drink from the street, to items from Department Stores, etc.) We actually are embarking on living a zero-waste lifestyle here in the U.S. E.g. we don't purchase soda/any drinks that comes in plastic bottle/containers, we use reusable plastic containers to buy items from grocery (such as produce, etc.). We buy second-hand items before purchasing new things and before "throwing" old items that are not recyclable/combustible, we donate those. It is a slow going process but we are going. I know it is not realistic in Japan -- when I cook Japanese food, many of the seasonings, salad dressings, oils, soy sauces, even natto come in their own little packaging (just think of how many separate packaging a pack of natto has: the styrofoam, the small packet of the sauce, and yet another small packet for mustard, AND yet another plastic packaging that keeps the packs of styrofoam together). In any case, I am glad to have watched this video, I think Japan has one of the more advance waste management system in Asia. Thank you!

Hey! I don't know if needed captions for this since it's a reupload, but I went ahead and captioned them. I really love your channel and all the videos you put up, so if you're interested I'm more than happy to help out with captioning! Just my small contribution to the amazing contribution you've made to RU-vid.

This would encourage people not to buy things with an EXCESS amount of packaging! That is a big problem here in the U.S. Manufacturers love to add extra to make the products look bigger. A lot of items can be bought with no packaging or you could just bring your own reusable bag.

The bottles of water are to reflect light. In areas that lack adequate street lighting, people will place the bottles near poles or walls so that the headlights of a car will reflect off of the bottles and the bottle will light up surprisingly brightly.

Wow! In Boston I lived with some great people who recycled but it was never at this level! We just threw it in the blue bin and hoped for the best. It would be such a great learning tool for everyone to learn a little more like this because it helps not only yourself but those who pick up our messes!

Australia - we have a recycling bin (that is yellow lid) that we throw ALL of our recycle in (glass jars, cans, containers, paper, cardboard). A 2nd bin (green lid) is for organics such as left over food and certain food packaging (EDIT- forgot to add garden waste and mulch / grass clippings). A 3rd bin is for general household rubbish (red bin). Rubbish is once per fortnight pick up, recycle is once per fortnight pick up, organics is every week. The bins are 120 litres (rubbish) and 240 litres each (recycle and organics). In summer with fortnightly rubbish pick up, the rubbish bin can get quite smelly and unhygienic, but the local council went from weekly to fortnightly but still charged the same price to make more money off us.

I live in New Jersey and every township has different rules for recycling. I live in Ewing Township and they issued us a yellow and a green bin. Yellow is for plastic and glass and green is for cardboard and paper. If you want to go above and beyond, then you have to find a recycling center. It's much simpler but that doesn't mean that it's better for the environment.

I just moved to japan as an exchange student and this video really helped me to better understand how should i handle my trash, thank u!!

this is something every industrialised country need to learn.

I've never seen anyone that excited about garbage collection before XD I grew up in Ohio, and lived in Indiana for a while. In both places, you had to pay for recycling. It was an extra service through the waste management company or city. There wasn't much sorting done at home - just toss anything recyclable into the green or blue bins. Here in Seattle, they take it more seriously (though not as much as Japan!) In Seattle proper (as opposed to outlying areas), not only do they recycle, but they require (by way of a law that's quite frankly difficult to enforce) composting. Food scraps, greasy pizza boxes, etc, all get composted in commercial compost facilities. Then, once a year, everyone in Seattle gets a coupon for mulch/fertilizer made from the compost. It's also used on all the greenery and parks around. There's also neighborhood gardens, where you can pay to rent a garden plot, that usually have a compost bin (but they're not public use, so you can't just toss in your banana peel if you're out for a walk!). We also do regular recycling (for free! I was surprised when I first moved here). They ask that you clean stuff, but it seems like a lot of people don't. Again, no pre-sorting. Like you guys, we got a flier in the mail (sent anytime the post office knows someone's moved into the area) explaining the recycling system. Of course, there's regular trash too. I always find I have about 2x as much in recycling - which is great - all that volume being diverted from landfills! I LOVE the idea of having stickers for special items! That way they definitely get paid for, and the garbage company knows to take it. Here, you have to call ahead and schedule a pick up, on top of paying a fee. Due to that, sometimes people just leave large items (mattresses, furniture, large, broken electronics) by the curb in hopes someone will come by and take it. Or worse, drag it to a dead-end street and leave it there. It's not very common to see in most places, but it does happen, unfortunately.

In Canada, we have recycling depots where we take bottles, cans and glass and get money in return. They also take old electronic devices and batteries, even different types of lightbulbs and their fixtures, but we don't get money for those.

Wow! I wish we had this type of system here! And with packaging that is designed to come apart for recycling

In the part of England I live in we have 4 different bins, 1 for recyclables which is green , 1 for rubbish which is black, 1 for food waste which is small black and orange and one for garden waste which is brown

These videos are a great way to view Japanese daily life and also to get the kids involved in their chores/housework eh? Recycling here is done in two lidded tubs. One is for paper, bottle shaped plastics with a 1 or 2, batteries and small cardboard while the other one is for tin/aluminum cans, glass and overflow small cardboard. Larger cardboard has to be broken down and put under the tubs out on the curb/driveway. Anything not recyclable or if the plastic is a clamshell or doesn't have a mouth smaller than the bottom goes to the trash while kitchen waste can be composted if you want. It just has to be away from the house a bit because of bears, we have brown bears and grizzly bears where I live.

We have like plastic and paper bins, which we then carry to a containers, which are every 50 meters. The containers are yellow for plastic, blue for paper and green for communal waste.

Good job Aiko. And what a great dad, Gregg. Congratulations!!

So organized!

Here in the US we have companies that come around and pick up our recycling but you have to pay a monthly fee to have that service. My family recycles but we take our items to the dump station which have separate large bins for recycle items. We separate into a few categories; plastic, paper, cardboard, aluminum, glass and they have other bins for large items that can't be recycled. We take our recycles to the dump station once a month. Every now and then our city will hold a hazardous dump day for those who need to get rid of batteries, old paint, oils and broken electronics.

Wow! I love how important recycling is in Japan. It's amazing how much more work needs to go into it, than here in America. We have curbside pick up 1 day a week for everything you put out, and also centers where you take it yourself. When I go take care of my recycling, a lot of things are just lumped together, barely broken down, and full of things that aren't actually recyclable. Plastic bottles can be, but not the lids, it's frustrating. They are grouped into categories - glass by color, tin, aluminum, plastics, cardboard and newspaper, and some electronics. If recyclable materials are soiled by oils or foods, they can not be recycled...like pizza boxes..or unclean containers. I wish we could make recycling more predominant here, it's so important for helping our planet! In my state of Pennsylvania, we do not receive any money for recycling, which I think would give so many more people incentive to do so! I love that the styrofoam containers are used as planters! Thanks for sharing!

In Poland every city or waste company can have their own policy but the most common categories are paper, glass, plastic usually mixed with metals and tetrapack and generic trash. Sometimes there are also bins for biodegradable stuff and you can order one for home renovation. Furniture and big things are collected by trucks once per week and you probably have to pay extra for it but people just leave it near trash bins (because the idea is that someone can take it if they need it). Special companies collected or buy old electronic/AGD/RTV and when you buy for example new fridge you can choose to leave the old one with the shop. Bins for batteries, light bulbs and medicine or its packaging are common in chain convince stores. You can sell aluminum and some metals for cash. Some schools collect paper and electronics for sale as students projects. The general law is that you need to declare if you will recycle or not and if you choose not to then you pay much more for trash collection.

Where I'm from, we have various ways to recycle. There are big recycling canister (bins) in different area's of the city that separate the recyclables, and there are private recycling companies (usually you have to pay them a small fee for taking your recyclables away), Then there are city and private (regular trash companies that takes all the garbage) that also pick up recyclables. With mine, we throw everything allowed ( non separated) into one big container then they recycle it at the recycling center :-)

Good job! I like the way you manage your waste.

Justin looks to be having a blast up there, I'm envious.

Where I live in the US there is a bin for waste and recyclables (paper, plastic, etc). The only things that can't be recycled are bio waste, chem waste and food waste (compost). But they are consolidated into one bin and sorted by the recycling company. The money they get goes back into the city. Very happy I don't have to sort my recycling like I did in Germany or Italy.

Your videos are awesome and Aiko is so adorable and funny! Keep up the awesome work :D

In my town in the US, each family was given by the town a big blue bin and a big green bin. The green is recyclables and the blue is non recyclable trash. It gets collected once a week. To get a second trash bin or overflow trash bags costs extra. This is a pretty new system to encourage people to recycle. People reuse things, too, in similar ways to you.

In Norway we often have 4/5 different trashcans in our kitchens. One for paper(and similar materials), one for plastic, one for food, one for random (safe) trash+one thing for bottles that we put in a machine in food stores and get money back(It's called "Pant" in Norway) so I think we are doing well here too :)

Very informative! Thank you for making this video! ^o^

I suppose this is part of the reason Japan looks so clean in all the videos I've watched.

Thank you for making informative videos, LWIF! I'm an avid fan and supporter. Looking forward to more videos! :)

apart from being quite adorable, this was 1A information. Thank you. - your channel reminds me a bit of the Yotsubato series - and that is a fantastic way to share the info!

*Aiko's so adorable. I can't even handle it.* "You want me to do like this? *tips over trash can so stuff falls out*" "Well, you've already done it now, so yeah." Well played, Aiko. Well played. 😏

Thank's for your videos, _such an inspiration_

I LOVED Japans mini vehicles!

Awesome, great in so many ways.

Where i come from (Australia) we have bottles, cans, glass, paper, cardboard put in one bin, garden waste in one bin and all other waste in another bin.

Looks complicated but I like how organized and surprisingly clean it turns out to be. We don't follow the same procedures from where I'm from. I guess it just isn't much of a thing yet in my country.

In germany we pay a deposit for most of the bottles and beer cans (8 to 25 €-cents). Some glas should be recycled in containers in the street, the same for paper/carton (but you can also by your own outdoor bin. The rest of the "normal" waste is separated in plastic, sometimes compost and "rest". Furthermore electronics have to go back to the seller, same with batteries (or you could bring them to a waste - facility), paint etc. goes to the facility as well as garden - stuff like leaves etc. In my area bulky waste (furniture etc) will be picked up for free, if you call them like 3 weeks in advance. which is a good thing, if you don't have a car!

In Australia we must recycle everything, recycling goes into a separate bin inside the house & then once every 2 weeks the council collects it in a large 200 litre bin.. all paper, glass, cardboard, tin etc goes off to the local rubbish tip where it is sold & then separated & recycled into new products ..

Hey, I don't know about else where in Canada but my neighborhood has a community compost site, things like food waste and yard waste can be picked up on specific days and put in a big compost bin with worms and other creepy crawlers. And any one can come and get compost for free. Also their is Christmas trees program where every one leaves their tree outside and the city collects them and uses them as wind barricades along the skating trail on the river, some are burnt in shelters by skating trails, out door hockey rinks and toboggan slides, the trees that are left over after all that are turned into wood chips and used in city parks. Otherwise we've 2 bins one for trash and another for recyclables, green and blue respectively. their is a pick up once a week, and the time of day that the pick up is around depends on the area, My area is Monday between 8am to 1pm.

I live in brooklyn ny and we started a composting program. And we do paper, recyclable, and regular waste. Large furniture gets a scheduled pickup on recycling days and things like refrigerators have to be called in because of the toxic chemicals. By law, any place that sells you electronics must also accept electronics for recycling.

here in Australia we have 1 recycling bin that everything goes into but you can exchange certain recyclables for money this includes things like aluminum cans and PET bottles

hey I loved your channel! I'm a Chilean living in Austria and I just love knowing about different cultures. This is so cool and interesting!