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trash

Fujisawa Enoshima Fireworks Festival results in one ton of garbage strewn on the beach

Shocked net users lament the beachside paradise littered with garbage–an uncommon occurrence in usually tidy Japan.  

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The must-have item to avoid being a jerk at Tokyo’s biggest Halloween street party

Bring a bag, and no, not to put candy in.

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Now even countries that aren’t playing against Japan are cleaning their stadiums at the World Cup

Movement started by Japanese soccer fans spreads beyond Japanese team’s opponents and group, could be changing the face of sports fandom.

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Samurai trash collectors clean streets of Tokyo in dramatic fashion 【Videos】

If you dare to litter in Tokyo, you’d better watch out, because there’s a team of fearsome samurai warriors ready to admonish you.

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Japan’s top sakura cherry blossom viewing spots littered with trash after hanami picnics

People in Japan are appalled at the piles of rubbish left behind by visitors this year.

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Travel tip: 100 yen shop solves the “What do I do with my trash?” problem visitors face in Japan

A clever solution to one of the biggest annoyances about traveling in Japan.

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Japanese Twitter manga artist highlights continuing problem of post-Halloween aftermath 【Photos】

Online artist takes a swipe at Halloween party-goers and the sea of trash they leave in their wake.

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Japanese sign uses the power of spirits to strike fear into passers-by and stop them from littering

Forget putting the fear of God into someone; this graveside sign calls on spirits to ensure people mind their manners.

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Yokohama government trash-helper app gives poignant philosophical advice to depressed citizens

Sometimes help can come from where you least expect it… like, REALLY least expect it.

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Osaka resident follows Twitter suggestion and befriends neighborhood crows with shocking result

Don’t mistake crows for being dumb birds. They will remember your face and never forget you!

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Jack-‘o-lantern trash bags being handed out to fight litter during Tokyo Halloween parties

Celebration’s image tarnished in recent years as partiers leave huge amounts of trash on the streets.

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Other than a thief, who puts a cracked safe in the garbage? Japanese Twitter would like to know

Especially when he blatantly disregards the law by putting it out on the wrong day for recyclables.

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You party, we tidy — Volunteers, kids hit Shibuya streets to clean up after Halloween hijinks

Remember when everyone’s minds were blown by images of Japanese fans tidying up their section after the World Cup? Well what might seem amazing to some is totally atarimae (obvious and expected) to the typical Japanese mindset. As your mother may have told you as a kid; you make the mess, you tidy it up! And the day after the massive Halloween party at the famous Shibuya crossing last weekend, volunteers were out in droves this year again with plastic bags and gloves to make the streets all sparkly again.

But just how many of them actually even contributed to the mess to begin with? According to reports on Twitter, not too many—and boy, are they angry…

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The morning after: The trash-ridden aftermath of the iPhone 6 release in Hong Kong

The insane queues for the release of Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus were reported by media outlets around the world, but what fewer of them have picked up on is the aftermath of the hype, and what was left behind once Apple fans had got their mitts on the latest slinky gadgets.

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Sumida River Fireworks Festival aftermath: Not everyone in Japan has perfect manners after all

Japanese soccer fans attracted plenty of praise at the World Cup last month when, having watched their team lose to Ivory Coast, they diligently cleaned up their trash from the stadium. Whether you think these supporters’ actions show how important it is to Japanese people to be considerate of others, or just good old-fashioned common sense that applies wherever you are in the world, everyone (well, almost everyone) agreed that taking your rubbish home with you is A Good Thing.

This week, however, Japanese Twitter users have breathed a collective disappointed sigh as photos of the trash left in the streets after the world-famous Sumida River Fireworks Festival show some people in Japan aren’t as super-considerate as we’d like to think. Is Tokyo an exception to the rules? Or is Japan’s reputation as a super-clean nation undeserved?

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“Recycling in Japan” or “Reasons to get it right and avoid eternal shame”

Is Japan’s recycling system the most complicated in the world? It sure feels like it sometimes. Household waste must of course be separated into burnable and non-burnable, but after that there’s a dizzying array of recycling categories to break your non-burnables into. Since Japan is a relatively small country without masses of land to use for burying waste, the vast majority of waste used to be incinerated. However, with increasing ecological awareness in the 1990s came new legislation to minimise the amount of waste being burnt, and promote recycling.

Public awareness of the need to recycle is high, but the system can be baffling for new foreign residents. The problem lies not only in the array of recycling categories, but also in the apparent overlap between them: the grey areas. Is an empty pizza box considered recycled paper? Or is it burnable? Paper packages? “Other”? And if a bottle is made of a different type of plastic to the standard PET, is still a “pet bottle”, or is it just “plastic”?

Today we bring you six reasons to learn what goes in what box, and a few hints for getting it right along the way.

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Handsome Comiket newbie inspires other fans to clean up their act

Another winter Comiket has come and, unfortunately, gone. Though we have to say that fans probably welcome a break after a few days of hustling from booth to booth, and the convenience stores are most definitely glad for some respite. On the other hand, we can only imagine how overwhelmed the cleaning crews must be right now.

If only more fans were more like this sexy, young gentleman; the cleaning crews’ work would be cut by half!

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Art students in Tokyo are creative even when they’re cleaning

When life give you lemons, make lemonade. When it gives you soggy trash…make a trash man?

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Amazing New Garbage Bags Just Made Cleaning Up Your Town Cool (No, Really)

As much as it might sound like a speech that one of those creepy, smile-flashing, tracksuit-wearing guest speakers might have given at your school when you were a kid, it genuinely is cool to be seen cleaning up your town in Japan right now.

In a joint venture between Garbage Bag Artwork and Columbia Sportswear Japan, a range of artistically-designed garbage bags has been launched, along with a swanky new website that aims to encourage both local groups and handsome folks like you and me to get out and clean up our towns. Read More

Japanese Man Pulls Knife on Teenagers For Littering, “I Just Wanted to Warn Them”

Japan is known for being one of the cleanest countries in the world, surely a point of pride for many Japanese people. But is it enough to pull a knife on someone for littering?

Last month, Tokyo police arrested a 60-year-old man for threatening a female high school student with a knife after they threw their trash on the ground of a public park.

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