How to Deal with Garbage

Here are my experiences of how to deal with garbage in different places I have lived around the world:

Bangladesh: Throw your trash in the river, in the ditch, or in the street.  If you want to be a little more ethical about it, you can put your garbage in a garbage bag and throw the bag in the river, in the ditch, or in the street!  The garbage will then be sorted through by a resourceful few who can collect anything and make a penny off of it.

Kuwait: Throw anything you do not want in the big dumpsters outside apartment buildings.  You can throw out ANYTHING you want: toilets, couches, chairs, bookcases, even your entire house if you so desire.  If the garbage bin is not big enough, throw it beside the bin and begin a garbage pile.  Once that pile is too big, just start another one.  The cats will love you for whatever you throw in.  If you are in an area where there are no garbage bins, leave your garbage on the ground for the hired third world nationals to pick up.

Canada:  Throw your trash in a garbage bag, your bottles, cans, glass, and cardboard in a recycling bin, and put these bins on your curb on designated days for city pick up.  If your city does not have recycling pick up, bring your recycling to the nearest recycling centre.  Any big items that cannot fit in a garbage bag must be brought to the dump for a nominal fee.  You can make up this fee by bringing your cans and bottles to the bottle depot.

Japan: Purchase designated garbage bags at the local grocery store for a high fee, ensuring that you have purchased the correct coloured bag for the area you live in.  Sort your garbage according to the following parameters:
1. Plastics- anything made of plastic applies to this category- the wrapping from juice box straws, bottle caps, plastic bags, cellophane, sucker sticks etc.
2. Combustibles- these are items that can burn in an incinerator- basically food products and kleenex
3. Waste Paper - paper and cardboard-cardboard should be cut so that it is flat, including juice and milk cartons, neatly stacked, and tied with ribbon
4. Non-Combustibles: anything that does not apply to the list above-
5. Bottles and Cans- glass bottles and tin cans of any kind
6. PET bottles- these are your plastic bottles that say PET on them
7. Hazzardous waste- batteries, aerosal cans, etc.
8. Used clothes- 
9 . Big Items: Call the local garbage pick up and pay an exorbitant fee to get it picked up.  (Often times people will give away their cars as it will cost more to have someone take it away than what they car is worth).

The city will then pick up these items on designated days of the week.  For example, in our area, we have combustible pick up 2x a week, waste paper and plastic 1x a week,  non-combustibles, used clothes, hazardous waste, bottles/cans, and PET bottles every other week.

YUP!  A bit of an organizational nightmare.  I have had to write the garbage pick up schedule on my calendar and purchase enough bins to organize all the garbage.  If the garbage is not in the pre-desiganted bags, or is not sorted properly (and they will check) you are left with your garbage and a nasty note in Japanese that I am sure says, "Get your act together", or something of the sort.

Sorting household garbage is a part time job in Japan- but I guess it has to be in a country of almost 130,000,000 people.