Why the Japanese Don't Litter | Hacker News Reader

Why the Japanese Don't Litter

japantravelcafe.com

73 pointsjmduke59 comments

Japan's very low number of public trash cans isn't just because of this "tradition and culture of courtesy and bringing trash home". It is also a direct result of a Sarin gas terrorism attack that hit the Tokyo subway system in 1995, whereupon some of the weaponry was deposited in a public trash can. Afterwards, the number of public trash cans was dramatically reduced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin_gas_attack_on_the_Tokyo_...

Source: Friend who grew up in Tokyo and was 10 years old when the attacks happened. He was using one of the attacked subway lines regularly.

> It is also a direct result of a Sarin gas terrorism attack that hit the Tokyo subway system in 1995,

Precisely, the author is just plain ignorant. By the way the same thing happened in France after the metro bombinga.

And in the UK after enough IRA bombs in wastebins.

And, of course, getting rid of wastebins in the UK hasn't stopped bombings altogether, but it has made it frustratingly difficult to dispose of your litter (I do happen to always take mine with me anyway, but evidence suggests plenty of people don't). Much better - and in use in sensible locations - is a simple transparent bin/bag. Why they're not in use in more places, I'm not sure.

> is a simple transparent bin/bag

It's been the standard in Paris for a while now. It has its own problems, though (bags breaking, making litter spill all around...)

When I lived in the UK (2002-2003) I was told that its perfectly acceptable to leave your litter on the train platform against the wall as there are people who regularly come by to clear it. Is this still true?

I've never heard that. It's certainly 'acceptable' to leave litter on the train at the final stop, but other than that I think pretty much all littering is approached with typical British sensibilities - we frown on it, from afar.

Yes that's right. There are no bins in the statition but there are often cleaners. Still if you can take your rubbish with you that makes for a nicer looking train station.

> And in the UK after enough IRA bombs in wastebins.

But bizarrely not in Northern Ireland... bins galore when I was growing-up.

And again after 9/11. In lot of places you can still see the bins, but there are shut by concrete or steel plates.

that event still sends shudders because it was so bizarre.

Yup, still remember watching the news with my parents and not really truly understanding the ramifications. Yet despite my lack of comprehension, it has left a mark.

Japanese dont litter ? This must be a good joke !! Japanese litter everywhere where they feel safe to do it. Go to a Hanabi Taikai (fireworks in summer) and on your way back you will be WALKING on litter for 1 kilometer. Go hiking in the mountains and you will see the extent of Japanese littering when noone is looking. Mountains of cans thrown away by hikers. Go in the countryside and see whay people leave on the side of the street. Oh yeah, they do litter just like everyone else, they are just a little more ashamed to do it public, and in the city the public services are just very efficient at cleaning up anyway.

There's trash all over the street in parts of Roppongi and Kabukicho on a Friday or Saturday night, same as any bar district in the US or Europe.

I think people are overlooking that it's rich folks at the World Cup. I doubt the Americans down there are leaving trash around either.

Neither of these places are pinnacles of Japanese society - all bars, strip joints, and foreigners.

After reading tourist books about how Japanese people think it's rude to blow your nose in public... it is slightly disconcerting to visit and see a guy hawk up some phlegm and spit it on the street. And/or, you step on a frozen goober, sparkling in the sun.

Even to the extent the generalization about a culture is true, there will always be interesting exceptions.

In Tokyo, I do very occasionally see people eating while walking or even inside a train. It's probably more common now simply because there are more take-out possibilities, e.g. take-out from Starbucks. There seems to be less stigma now.

The article paints a little bit of a rosy picture regarding people and their trash. I do often take home my trash so that it can be properly disposed of (the city picks up different kinds of trash on different days, for proper disposal or recycling), but I do this somewhat reluctantly. Who wants to carry around trash? And sometimes, if I'm lazy, I put the trash into the outside trash bins of whatever convenience store happens to be nearby. In fact, I think the now ubiquitous presence of convenience stores goes a long way to explain why there are very few public trash cans.

While most people here do not litter, there is a small percentage who do, either regularly or because they're drunk and have lost their sense of social responsibility. But there's always a group of volunteers (often senior citizens) who clean things up every morning. Also, the well-heeled routes are often in front of stores or restaurants, and it's not surprising that someone will be cleaning up in front.

But overall, there is very little littering.

Ya it was cleaner when I was in Tokyo but people also smoke more there and the subways are crowded. Pros and cons.

The smoking is a peeve of mine. So many young people in Japan smoking. It's very surprising because people know better.

There's no real campaign against smoking in Japan. The most "anti-tobacco" ads you see are about making sure you don't bother people around you when you smoke. And they don't really work, because smokers in Japan are completely inconsiderate of people around them. In Europe I have seen many smokers asking in restaurants before lighting one "does it bother you if I smoke?" but in Japan this would extraordinary to hear that.

So, yeah, Japan, people, politeness, respect, etc... well yeah, it kind of works, but in many situations it's sub-standard.

Most restaurants have smoking and non-smoking areas, and I guess people figure that if you're in the smoking area you at least agree to deal with the smoke. And, if you're in a restaurant that doesn't have a non-smoking area, well you're also totally free to not go to that restaurant, you know?

I'll remind you that this is basically the same attitude that you saw in the entire West up until about ten years ago before smokers became Worse Than Hitler and people stopped caring if they lived in a Nanny State.

> Most restaurants have smoking and non-smoking areas, and I guess people figure that if you're in the smoking area you at least agree to deal with the smoke. And, if you're in a restaurant that doesn't have a non-smoking area, well you're also totally free to not go to that restaurant, you know?

Except that most of the facilities are completely inadequate, and you know, when I'm sitting in a non-smoking area and the smoking area is just the table next to me, with no separation whatsoever, well we have a problem. And even when they are vaguely separated, it's through a thin half-sized wall which does not prevent the smoke from moving around. It's THAT ridiculous.

> I'll remind you that this is basically the same attitude that you saw in the entire West up until about ten years ago before smokers became Worse Than Hitler and people stopped caring if they lived in a Nanny State.

Maybe, but in Japan there's no sign of smokers being ostracized at all. They are perfectly tolerated and I don't see many people complaining about them. That's part of the problem.

>It's THAT ridiculous.

See second point i.e. "well you're also totally free to not go to that restaurant, you know?"

>That's part of the problem.

I don't think that it is. I don't smoke (aside from the very occasional cigar), but I certainly don't need to ostracize smokers either, and unless they are smoking in a place where it is explicitly forbidden, I don't need to complain about them either.

Problem, it's very difficult to find non-smoking restaurants or bars in Japan. You are exposed to smoke wherever you go as a non-smoker. So your solution is, I shouldn't go out ?

Yeah, sounds fair and reasonable.

> smokers became Worse Than Hitler

Interesting comparison, given that Hitler was an ardent non-smoker and the Nazis instituted one of the first public anti-tobacco campaigns:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tobacco_movement_in_Nazi_G...

They do know better but what I witnessed in Japan was wayyy too much group think going on and not enough individualism.

That's probably why there hasn't been that many successful startups in Japan when there's a population of over 100mm ppl.

Startups or not, and getting a little off-topic, it will still be thrilling to see a humanoid land on the moon, perhaps even more thrilling than seeing a human doing the same thing.

And just for fun (because I like the story), according to the Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soichiro_Honda, Mr. Honda had a little "startup" going in elementary school:

"Honda was not interested in traditional education, his school handed grade reports to the children, but required that it will be returned stamped with the family seal, to make sure that a parent had seen it. Soichiro created a stamp to forge his family seal out of a used rubber bicycle pedal cover. The fraud was soon discovered when Honda started to make forged stamps for other children. Honda did not realize that the stamp had to be mirror-imaged. His family name 本田 was symmetrical when written vertically, so it did not cause a problem, but some of other children's family names were not."

Could you name a country, where the majority of college-educated population is unlikely to feel comfortable speaking or reading English, where there has been many successful startups?

I'm trying to see whether my hypothesis that "country with successful startups" correlates with "country where the potential startup demographic is likely to be exposed to Silicon Valley ideas" holds up.

Conversely, check out Yoyogi park on the Monday after a hanami weekend. The ground is covered in garbage, broken bottles, cans, etc. Or check out the square at Shinbashi station after the salarymen finish their impromptu outdoor happy hour. All flat surfaces are littered with convenience store wrappers, empty beer cans and cigarette butts.

The culture of conformity is at work even during times of disobedience. ;)

edit: Kind of like "cut days!"

Last time I was in Shinjuku (2009) there were actual cigarette police in special uniforms who followed smokers around and publicly chastised or fined them if they littered. I saw 3 salarymen get busted within about 15 minutes. The fact that this system even exists indicates that the Japanese do litter.

On the flipside, all the fast food joints had wastebins sorted by garbage type, and I did get death stares when I accidentally put some rubbish in the wrong one. Eating while walking also got dirty looks, but conversely you could buy beer and snacks on some of the trains and drinking alcohol in public is allowed.

Site has been hugged to death, cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:oIkNRIM...

> Last time I was in Shinjuku (2009) there were actual cigarette police in special uniforms who followed smokers around and publicly chastised or fined them if they littered.

It's probably not working very well, because Shinjuku in the morning (at least Kabukicho, if that's what you were referring to) looks like a warzone filled with trash. They do an amazing job to clean it up everyday, however.

It was the South-West end during the daytime, the crowd seemed mostly business people. I get the feeling that Kabukicho and Golden Gai are treated as their own little walled gardens of sin :)

I was also surprised by the number and condition of the homeless. I had expected a communal minded society would look after such people.

This is more to harass people (walking and) smoking away from the designated zones in general. Serves two purposes - enforces a pretty big change in habit, and creates jobs for older people.

Paris would benefit from a cigarette police. Smokers there throw cigarette butts anywhere. Street sweepers deal mostly with cigarettes, and they use a ton of water to sweep it all into the sewers.

If you are actually wondering "Why the Japanese Don't Litter" let me save you the trouble of reading this article, which basically can be summed up as "Because they don't."

And that, right there, is an profound summary of why a strong, common culture is so important for a social unit: it's the only proven way to escape the prisoner's dilemma of society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOK6mE7sdvs

Careful comrade, you're bordering on crimethink there. Why, next you'll be reading unsanitized research papers! Be on the right side of history, comrade.

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3935515136/hA69BE910/

America is actually quite tidy compared to much of the world I've visited, where the notion of binning rubbish is completely absent and children, animals, and adults are exposed to litter and refuse and pollution as a constant and inescapable fact of life.

Hard to take this seriously.

Google in Images "Japanese school children clean their classrooms" and you'll find dozens of photos, not just of putting things away, but literally scrubbing the classroom floors. Even one photo of the guys cleaning the urinals. Maybe a prank shot. But may as well not be.

The Japanese see cleanliness and orderliness as a primary virtue and leaving a place that they have used clean is taught and reinforced by peer behavior at a young enough age as to become second nature. The fans at Toulouse probably didn't even think about it.

Not a prank shot - they have actually managed to convince generations of kids to clean their school's toilets using chemicals and no special training. They mask it as "culture" but it's a cost saving measure, they could be getting lessons and an education during that time.

I don't think you can really separate it out like that. It is part of what You Just Do At School, definitely, but it is also conveniently a cost-saving measure, sure. That doesn't mean that if you tried to cut it out, that parents wouldn't complain about it.

At any rate, having seen both, I assure you that there is infinitely more bullshit that American kids are doing at school instead of learning, compared to Japanese.

Learning how to clean is a pretty good lesson.

> but literally scrubbing the classroom floors. Even one photo of the guys cleaning the urinals. Maybe a prank shot. But may as well not be.

The kids have to. You know, it's imposed by the teachers.

But I don't think the kids view it as an imposition. Kids (and even adults) enjoy working together on a common activity with a common goal.

> enjoy working together on a common activity with a common goal.

You mean, just like people enjoy common work in jail ?

I was thinking more of startups. ;-)

What's really nice is that during the World Cup, after a game the Japanese fans were seen[1] cleaning up litter from the stadium. A great set of people!

[1]: i.imgur.com/pTrgXWI.jpg

I did a year of Rotary exchange to a Japanese high school, and can confirm that we students did in fact clean the toilets. Our school had porcelain "squat" toilets, and they were quite disgusting to scrub. Yet everyone took their turn, with a minimum of complaint. It was normal.

While I agree with your general assessment, I want to point out that it cannot be concluded from your example: in Russia (at least when I was in elementary/high school in the 90s), children clean the classroom in much the same way as in Japan (scrub the floors etc), very hands-on. Yet Russia is pretty much opposite Japan in littering on the streets.

To me, "not littering" is different from "cleaning up for others". I need an article to explain why the Japanese clean up for others.

Overall, it seems from my (possibly limited) view of Japanese culture that they tend to put a lot of emphasis on cohesion, respect of authority and laws, not deviating from what's good for the group as a whole.

Which has its downsides, surely, but in this case is a good thing.

There is also the possibility that the venue itself, a large area filled with people, visiting a foreign country, would cause the to feel such an obligation as "guests".

Fans of any flavour enjoy being subsumed by the crowd and I can imagine this behaviour was a way for those Japanese fans to prolong their feeling of group solidarity after the match.

I'd like to have witnessed the propagation of the clean-up-the-stadium meme as it happened. My guess is that for most of the fans, they'd have been initially ambivalent; the niceties of this situation being unfamiliar. One fan decided it was the right thing to clean-up and their neighbours then propagated the activity throughout the population without giving it too much thought. Once the cleaning was in motion, each fan would have to define their range of cleaning for themselves. Since the area is not specified, they'd err on the conservative side, cleaning a maximal range for any of their possible ejecta. This would reflect a preoccupation on quality over considerations such as opportunity cost or fairness.

> I need an article to explain why the Japanese clean up for others.

In very broad terms, the culture in Japan is very much "I take care of you, and you take care of me". Sure, it doesn't work the same way abroad, but by the time a Japanese person travels abroad it's already ingrained at a subconscious level.

Source: lived in Japan for 3 years, have a Japan-educated grandmother.

When I was in Japan for a few weeks, I was shocked how immaculate the whole country was.

You know what else shocked me? A flight attendant passing through the airport lobby noticed a small piece of paper litter on the floor. Without any hesitation, she picked it up and put it in her pocket.

You see other workers do the same. They don't just leave it up to cleaning staff. Everybody helps out. It's a cultural thing.

I'm getting a 503 error from the link; here's a Coral Cache version that's working:

http://japantravelcafe.com.nyud.net:8080/japanese-culture-2/...

Why do people clean their room and not throw trash on the floor? The same reason.

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