When we put out the recycling we feel like we’re changing the world for the better, patting ourselves on the back for separating out the glass, plastics, and paper. If you’re in a bigger city area, this is a difficult task, and it’s hard to keep up with. In Japan however, you don’t really have much of a choice.

There are paper, plastic, and burnable trash days, and you don’t really see many glass bottles. You don’t have the option of putting the cans outside of your apartment in Tokyo, because there’s literally no room for garbage cans. Garbage often gets washed out and dried in the time in between trash days not because it’s a considerate act for the sanitation people, moreover to make sure your apartment doesn’t stink because of the next point of this article. Electricity.

You think you’re good about turning lights off in your apartment? Think again! In the Tokyo apartment we stayed in, you have to hit a button to turn on the hot water, the AC has a remote control, but it’s usually preferable to make use of the air circulation so it doesn’t stagnate inside. Since work days are very long in Japan, there’s no use in leaving the AC on while you’re away, so it gets turned off, and everything inside the apartment bakes, including the trash. That little cup of yogurt you had for breakfast now smells like a festering trash pile, so yea, you’re going to want to wash it out with soap and water because plastic day isn’t for another 5 days.

The stove is normally the size equivalent of a slightly over-sized Bunsen burner, and you have to turn on and off the gas to use it. While Bethany has become accustomed to the turning on and turning off and thoroughly cleaning of this and that, mom and I were both pretty new to the tasks, and had to fumble our way through it a bit. While these tasks sound tedious and they are sometimes annoying, it is a far more efficient system overall, and you very seldom come across a stinky pile of garbage in the streets.