If you arrive in Japan, one of the first things you will be astonished by is the cleanliness of the cities. The second thing you may find is there are only a few trash bins on many streets or at stations in the busiest areas in Tokyo, while there is almost no trash found on the ground there. So where does all the trash go?
When you finally find trash bins at a convenience store, there are typically 4-5 different bins to categorize the type of trash you throw away, including burnable, unburnable, plastic bottles, glass bottles and cans. How has the country successfully managed to make its people to be so conscious about trash? Here are some facts and insights on the cleanliness of Japan.
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Trash Bins Are Rarely Found On Streets
As mentioned, it is almost impossible to find trash bins in public in Japan. There is a recycling box for only plastic bottles or cans near almost every vending machine on the streets in accordance with the public guidelines (Japan is widely known for its large number of vending machines, by the way), but you can’t just throw anything away in public places and local people like to follow the rules.
The primary reason behind the rareness of trash bins on streets today is public security. After tragic terrorist gas attacks using plastic bags in garbage cans in Tokyo’s subway stations in 1995, most trash bins were removed from most stations, department stores and buildings. Subsequently, the government and railway companies, for example, realized that they could reduce the time and cost of waste disposal by doing so, and the measures have continued until today.
The lack of trash bins means that trash must be taken home. Naturally, in convenience stores, there are signs written on the trash bins asking people not to throw away home or private trash there (otherwise a lot of the trash from other places might go there). These conditions led people to be aware of the trash they made, and to take responsibility for it.
Buddhism And Shinto As Spiritual Pillars of Japanese People
So, did Japanese people’s awareness of cleanliness come from the removal of trash bins on the streets in the 1990s? Not quite. People have known that the Japanese like to be neat and clean for a much longer time. Indeed, it is rooted in the thoughts & philosophy of Shintoism and Buddhism, which have been the spiritual pillars of the Japanese people since the 6th century.
Cleaning is one of the important Shinto rituals and considered a good deed in Buddhism. If you visit a temple or a shrine, you will see its priests sweeping the grounds with wooden brooms. The very first thing they do every morning is cleaning. In Shinto, the purity of things also means purifying the mind and soul.
That is why visitors at a shrine are asked to wash their hands (and maybe mouths) to clear out “Kegare 穢れ” (impurity) at a water space called “Chōzu-ya 手水舎” before praying. It is considered significant for people to wash dirt away with water (called “禊祓 みそぎはらい”) to keep their body, mind and soul clean.
Cleaning As A Daily Habit
Cleaning is, of course, not just a daily habit for priests but for most Japanese people as well. Why is cleaning such a common practice in Japan? The biggest part of the answer comes from the schools. Unlike the US or many other countries, Japanese schools do not hire a lot of janitorial or cleaning staff. Instead, students take turns to clean their classrooms, the hallway, the gym, (and even the toilets) etc. by themselves during an official cleaning time. This routine continues from elementary school through to their high school years, which is long enough for the habit of cleaning to take root in almost all Japanese people.
Also, most Japanese towns have their own community or group to manage the cleanliness by themselves, including cleaning the neighborhood, and family or community members take turns to place the garbage outside their homes in the correct spot for collecting trash within the community, which eventually is picked up by a government garbage truck on the morning of the predetermined day (by category, naturally).
Is Japan Really a Clean Country?
Having looked at the facts and the spiritual background, we can now agree that Japan is a country full of people aware of the importance of cleanliness in their area. Nevertheless, there are some figures that cannot be overlooked and should be mentioned.
One is the high consumption rate associated with the amount of garbage generated per person (*1). Japan is one of the highest ranked countries for material consumption / use, especially plastics. Another figure is the low waste recycling rates. Only 19.9% of the total garbage amount was recycled in 2018 (*2), compared to over 50% in EU countries like Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. And perhaps burning so much of the waste is not always the most environmentally friendly idea either.
These rates point to an issue that Japan needs to be more careful about reducing and reusing trash, rather than just collecting it properly and cleaning up the surface of the city so it LOOKS clean.
*1: JICA
*2: Ministry of the Environment, eurostat
Summary
We have shown you here some facts and insights to puzzle out the reasons behind Japan’s cleanliness. So the next time you look around at the “clean” city and the streets in the country, you may have a different perspective.
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