Won't Miss #33 - PET bottles, everywhere (reflection)

When I was still living in Tokyo, I never researched the reason why people put PET bottles full of water all over their property. This eyesore was to stop cats from doing things, especially peeing on the property. I was told that they were placed there for that reason by many of my students and acquaintances and never looked any deeper.

However, it has been suggested to me that there are other possibilities. One was that it was a way of storing emergency drinking water or water for strangers to drink when they walk by. While these would be reasonable theories, they are not in keeping with Japanese thinking. No Japanese person would touch a drop of water that had been stored outside of their home, particularly in an unsealed bottle that anyone could come by and contaminate. Most of the people I spoke to were too suspicious to eat a free sample given away on the street, even a sealed one. There was a great deal of squeamishness about safety.

Also, it was not likely that they'd put water out there because it allowed them to store their earthquake supplies. Even if they wanted to use if as washing, cleaning, or toilet flushing water, they wouldn't store it in public. It is simply not done that way in Japan. It's not even done that way in most areas of the U.S., particularly not in suburbs. The desire to put on a "nice" front could only, apparently, be overridden by the scourge that is stray cats. I finally did do some research, and these bottles were put there because of cats. A Japanese T.V. show tested the theory because the habit is so common. 

I don't miss seeing these bottles all over the place as I'm not a fan of people lining up trash in front of their homes in any country. 

Won't Miss #366 - trash cops (the bad)

A (rather nice-looking) sign created by and placed in a trash collection area by a self-appointed "trash cop" reminding everyone that today's trash collection is over. This is to let them know not to put out more trash bags until the next collection day.

Some people are vigilant about making sure the trash on the curb of their block is properly done and that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. However, some people aren't content to fix the problem quietly or wait for others to handle their mistakes. They find out where trash sorting mistakes are made and decide it's their job to harass whoever they believe has made the mistake through garbage-based-sleuthing. These garbage Nazis can be so oppressive that they have actually driven people out of their apartments with their consistent badgering. What is more, many of them are proud of being such angry jerks about something as minor as trash.

I won't miss people who have so little in their lives and get off on bullying others so much that they paw through their trash looking for mistakes and who made them.

Won't Miss #214 - so many trash bins

I'm all for recycling, and I don't mind making the effort to sort my trash (though I'm less keen on the inefficient and troublesome washing of that trash). There is, unfortunately, an inevitable side effect to trash sorting and that's having to have a lot of different bins to place different trash in (or, in lieu of that, going through your garbage and separating it later which is disgusting and time consuming). Since Tokyo apartments are so small, having to keep so many bins around is very difficult. In fact, I have had to cram 7 separate trash bins into my tiny place: burnable items, "pura" (plastic recyclable), Styrofoam trays, paper, raw trash (kitchen scraps), cans and glass, and PET bottles.

It's a huge problem keeping so many of them in such a small kitchen and I won't miss the considerable floor and cabinet space I have to give up just for trash cans.