So what's so hard about it? The basics seem easy. There are many categories of garbage, you put each category in its own bag, and you put each bag out on specific days. It is not unreasonable. In fact, Kobe seems to have a fairly uncomplicated system as compared to other cities in Japan. They also provided us withe two large booklets - complete with clear pictures and cartoon characters to introduce us to the local system. The toughest part is putting your garbage out by 8am but NEVER putting it out the night before. This rule seems more lax at some garbage stops, but ours is strict. I often leave by 7am, though, so this really isn't a problem either.
Here's the local system. Burnable garbage (food waste, paper, etc) go in the blue bag with the happy male pig. Burnables are collected twice a week across the street from us. This didn't phase us. I should point out, however, that the bag the garbage goes into is important. For household waste, you must use a special bag with the proper cartoon character printed on the outside. When we first bought plastic bags, we accidentally bought business garbage bags, which are much more mundane and much less cute. These may have worked fine, but I had heard stories about angry old ladies telling off foreigners for not taking the garbage seriously - so when I realized that my garbage bag didn't match the other fifteen neighbors' garbage bags, I got cold feet and took the garbage home again. I was able to locate the proper bags at the local corner store, though, so we switched bags put our garbage out with little further trouble.
Non-Burnables are collected on the first and third Tuesday of the month. Non-Burnables include plastic, styrofoam, etc. Non-Burnables must be taken down the street to the corner, but there is a clearly marked sign, so we didn't see any problem with that. Incidentally, Non-Burnables are represented by a very happy looking male cat.
On the second and fourth Wednesday, they pick up the recyclable bottles (PET bottles) and cans. This one goes in the bag with the happy duck. We didn't accumulate much of this sort of garbage, so we could mostly just ignore it for the first month. In any case, things were still clearly marked.
Here's where we ran into problems. There was a fourth category - represented by a very happy FEMALE pig (note the bow behind her ear and the cute dress) for recyclable plastic. Recyclable plastic could be told apart from non-recyclable plastic by a symbol with the characters "プラ” or "Pu-Ra" on it. This is short hand for "Pu-Ra-Su-Ti-Ku" or "plastic". We had some trouble finding the female pig bags. We couldn't find them at the corner stores and finally had to go to the larger grocery store in the middle of town. We did eventually find the bags we needed, though. Next, I somehow noticed that plastics I has assumed were not recyclable did have the PuRa symbol... in fact, crazy things were marked PuRa. Things like styrofoam. I had to dig through my bags of non-burnables and resort. In the end, there were very few non-burnables, and a huge stack of PuRa. I was feeling more confident, however, because I had clearly mastered the cartoon characters.
The PuRa mountain in the corner, however, began to grow to a distressing size, and no matter how many times I read the rule books, I could not figure out when to put it out. The other three types of garbage had clearly marked days - they were even marked on the signs at the pick-up points - but not PuRa. This took about three weeks to figure out, but at some point I did notice a little note in the garbage book next to PuRa that said "Kita-Ku" or "North District." I double checked at work, and yes, indeed, PuRa was a new addition to the garbage system and was only being piloted in the North District - not the Central District where Russell and I live. I had been separating plastics for no reason. We quickly crammed the PuRa bags into Non-Burnable bags and put them out on the next appropriate Tuesday.
Our final problem was another growing mound of garbage - cardboard. When you move into a new apartment, you do, in fact, collect a TON of cardboard. One whole corner of our apartment had been taken over by flattened cardboard boxes. The book made it very clear that cardboard was not to go out with burnables, but did not make clear when it SHOULD go out. For the first week this was one more puzzle than we could really deal with. We just let the pile grow. On the second Friday, I was taking laundry to the local coin laundry, when I spotted piles of magazines and cardboard on many of the neighbors' stoops. I ran to put my laundry in, but before I got back to the apartment, the recycling man came and scooped up the cardboard. I was disappointed, but I figured I knew the system now and within a Friday or two, I should be able to get rid of the cardboard. The next week came and no magazines or cardboard appeared. The following week, I somehow missed the pickup.
After two more weeks of waiting and adding to the pile, I was really ready to get rid of it. The problem was that I forgot the night before, and I had to run to get to work on the appointed Friday. I almost forgot again, but I spotted some cardboard so I ran back upstairs and made Russell help me haul the cardboard downstairs to our front entrance. While we were down there, we spotted an old man sitting by the side of the road. We were still not 100% sure we had things right, so Russell went and asked him. He wasn't sure about cardboard day, but he decided that it was probably on Wednesday, not on Friday. I was fairly confident he was wrong, but I didn't see any cardboard in the immediate vicinity and I didn't want to leave my garbage out when there was a witness. We hauled everything back upstairs and checked online. At this point I really needed to get to work, so I left Russell checking. About four blocks down the road, Russell called and said that yes, today was cardboard day, but it had to be tied in a neat bundle. He asked me to buy some string from the local convenience store. I managed to buy some string and throw it to Russell before rushing off to the train. In the end, I did make it to work on time (though I had to make my copies like a mad woman) and Russell managed to properly bundle our cardboard and put it out for collection.
I am pleased to announce it is finally GONE.
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