Trash talk: A cross-cultural observation
In Denmark, there are as many trash cans as there are vending machines in Japan – or so it feels like. Conversely, there are as few public trash cans in Japan as there are vending machines in Denmark – or so it feels.
As a Dane, I’m used to disposing of my garbage as soon as I have it. It’s never an issue as public spaces are filled with trash cans. The convenience of getting rid of trash quickly instead of carrying it around all day seems like a matter of course in my Danish mindset. Why would I carry it around? It seems inconvenient.
One might assume that the lack of trash cans in Japan would result in littered streets and parks, right? Just like I have observed in several other countries around the world where public trash cans are not part of the townscape, and therefore trash is thrown on the streets or stored in places like alleys and riverbanks. But that’s not the case in Japan. I have realized that Japan has created an almost ‘trashcan-less’ public society where you only find small trash cans in convenience stores. To be fair, there are many convenience stores, though.
The photos show the square in front of the busy Tokyo Station with not a single trash to be found. The same for the street in Kyoto. Instead, there is a row of vending machines on a street, not only one but five.
What hits you here is waste sorting: pet bottles, paper and cardboard, general waste, as well as empty and cleaned food trays from plastic lunchboxes, which are a very popular item here. It’s always with a shaking hand that I try to put my waste in the right can, hoping to escape detection if I do it wrong. It’s not because we don’t do waste sorting in Denmark – in fact, there is a lot of it – but just not on the street, as those trash cans are single general trash bins. Sometimes, however, they do have a kind of shelf or box meant for pet bottles.
In Denmark, we have a recycling fee on most pet bottles and cans, which you get refunded when you deliver the item to a recycling machine placed in supermarkets. The shelf on the trash cans offers you to put your bottle there instead of carrying it around with you or preventing you from throwing it in the bin. Besides being a convenience for you to not carry around the bottle, I believe the idea is that people who may be more in need of the money from the fee, can pick it up and deliver it to the recycling machine. For public institutions and in our private home, we sort just like Japan.
But anyway, there is no trash lying in the street in Japanese cities. Instead, you see Japanese people carrying around a little plastic bag with their trash or packing it in their purse to throw it out at home. They are presumably carrying it around a whole day.
The photos below show how well placed the trashcans are in Copenhagen with three bins in a row both on the City Hall Square and the Red Square as well as next to a bench in a popular park in the neighborhood Nørrebro.
My question is: how did they manage to get people to not feel the need to discard their trash immediately or just leave it? How many times haven’t I been annoyed about carrying my trash around in my hand for hours because there was no trash can to be found? And I literally mean in my hand as I often only have a small purse with me.
In general, I will admit that Denmark is a clean country as well. That said, it’s unfortunately not uncommon in the summer to see overflowing trash cans on the street and leftovers from picnics in parks. Even though trash cans are plentiful, if one is full, people often tend to pile their trash on top instead of taking it with them, knowing that another trash can will be around the corner. This leaves it up to the sanitation workers to clean it up for us. And that’s maybe the heart of the issue. Danish people an indeed used to the privilege of having others to clean up for us. Whether it’s in school after lunchbreak, in a park after a picnic or in weekends where the streets are evidence of the night's festivities. Sanitation workers will do it for us while we a preoccupied during the next thing, so we often even notice that’s it’s being done.
Why can’t we bring our trash with us? I guess it is an inconvenience. I wonder if this could be a sign of a more individualistic mindset where we are not aware of collectively keeping our beautiful surroundings clean?
It actually doesn’t surprise me that Japanese society has managed to develop such tidiness in public spaces, as it aligns with the order and efficiency that streamlines the rest of society. It’s interesting how both countries can be clean, Japan maybe more so than Denmark. One without trash cans on the street, the other with many. From my perspective, we should strive to make Denmark litter-free and encourage everyone to participate in collective tidiness because, as far as I can see, it is possible.
So, how do we achieve that?