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Comment by flyinglizard | Hacker News Reader

I've been in Tokyo just now and there are barely any trash cans. It's annoying to no end. There's simply nowhere to throw your trash.

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There are trashcans outside of practically every convenience store, which exist about every 100 feet. They don't expect you to go walking off eating or drinking whatever you just bought. People hang outside the store, eat/drink/smoke, discard their waste and carry on. It's just a different culture and societal expectation.

When in Rome.

That was my expectation too, but recent experience at the tail end of COVID (~5 months ago), this was absolutely not the case-- I assume to stop people from congregating during the pandemic.

There are always trashcans in the convenience stores though, especially near the microwaves and coffee machines.

You put it in your pocket and throw it away at home.

IIRC, part of the reason for no trash cans is that eating in public is sort of taboo - you do it at a resto or at home. Food wrappers are quite a lot of trash people need to throw away.

From my last trip to Tokyo I recall vending machines having both garbage and recycling bins. So just keep an eye out for vending machines.

> part of the reason for no trash cans is that eating in public is sort of taboo

Not really. The main reason there are no trash cans in public is the 1995 sarin gas attack.

"A Terrorist Attack Led Japan to Remove All Its Trash Cans. Now They're Making a Comeback."

https://psmag.com/environment/trash-cans-are-coming-back-to-...

> Food wrappers are quite a lot of trash people need to throw away.

Agreed, but ironically Japan is the country I've visited that was the worst for this. Everything is wrapped, inside something wrapped, inside something wrapped. Each individual piece of candy is wrapped. Then 5 pieces are wrapped together. Then you have multiple of those again in a bag, etc. etc.

humidity

Eating/drinking in public isn't a taboo, it's moreso that actively walking while eating or drinking or creating a mess in public is frowned on. Nobody really cares if you're having a drink or snack while stationary standing somewhere that doesn't impede pedestrian right-of-way if you're being tidy.

it's frowned upon at the very least

>From my last trip to Tokyo I recall vending machines having both garbage and recycling bins

They do not. They're all recycling only.

I've always found this criticism to be overblown. Most conbini have trash and recyling bins out front, and in urban areas there's generally a conbini every few blocks, if not more frequently. It's not uncommon to see recycling bins near vending machines either.

A couple of things:

- The convenience stores closest to areas that tend to have a lot of tourists, along with not allowing access to toilets, tend to not have their trash cans out either.

- You have to know to go into a convenience store

- The trash bins near vending machines are for cups, so when you have the rice ball wrapper on you, it's a whole thing.

I do think it's very manageable when you know but It did not really "get" the trash strategy until someone pointed it out to me. Every day somebody is born that doesn't know to walk to the back of the Family Mart to find the trashcan

Society has decided that you shouldn't need to have to throw out trash while out and about. You're not doing something inconceivable, like eating or drinking while walking are you?

Sarcasm aside, eating and drinking in public is considered rude. Every single station will have places for tossing most recyclable, nearly every vending machine has recyclable trash cans for the products they sell, and outside of the most drunken areas the conbinis will have trash cans on the inside for all forms of garbage.

Same deal in Korea. Theory is if the provide trash cans people will use them for household waste vs the incredibly annoying household trash system.

IIRC the trash cans got removed after the Aum sect sarin gas attacks.

They're less common, but garbage and recycling bins are easily found if you make a modest effort to look for them. They're just less ubiquitous than they usually are in the west.

There's also a structural problem imposed by Japan's rigorous management of solid waste in urban areas. Single-stream disposal practically doesn't exist. If a municipality placed general waste bins on corners (as seen in many western urban areas), they'd have to have folks manually sorting whatever ends up in them, which isn't economical.

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