The Daily Quatch

The Daily Quatch is your source for anything nerdy and of note. From foreign policy to comic books to internet memes, we have something to say about pretty much everything. Occasionally it's even intelligent and insightful.

Moved the blog

To all of the two people who look at this blog, we’ve moved The Daily Quatch over to Posterous because it fixes a few issues Tumblr has with shared blogs, namely the ability to leave comments.

Check it out at:

http://dailyquatch.posterous.com/

Japan Land: The Garbage Rainbow

As some of you may know already, Japan has a rather unique take on garbage sorting compared to most other (sane) countries. In true Japanese style, trash is as unnecessarily complicated as possible. In the grand o’ US of A, we typically sort trash between recyclable and non-recyclable garbage (which, apparently, tends to be too complicated for many patriots). Recyclables: paper, glass, plastic, aluminum, is all even placed in the same green recycle bin and put out for the garbage man to collect.

In Japan, however, it is much more specific and often confusing. Compounding the already tedious task is the fact that the extent of the garbage discrimination depends on the city. For example, in Kobe, we only had to worry about burnable, non-burnable, and recyclable (PET, glass, aluminum) trash. Hokuto, on the other hand, has 13 different divisions of garbage. Most, though not all, have a corresponding colored trash bag, which runs the entire spectrum of the rainbow. Just to make it even more complicated, each type is picked up on a different day (the specific days vary by location in the city, as well).

Here’s the break down:

Clear: Plastic Trash. Plastic bags, Styrofoam, candy wrappers, etc. Picked up on Mondays.
Red: Unburnable Trash. Light bulbs, ceramics, kitty litter, etc. Picked up on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month.
Orange: PET Bottles (basically plastic soda bottles). Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Yellow: Compostable Trash. Basically anything that used to be alive. Picked up twice a week on Monday and Thursday.
Pale Yellow: Glass. Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Green: Aluminum. Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Hunter Green: Burnable Trash, Other. Clothes, blankets, sports balls, boots, kerosene jugs, etc. Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month.
Blue: Burnable Trash. Video game consoles, toys, tapes and CDs, shoes, etc. Picked up on Thursdays.
Purple (not pictured): Metal. Pots and pans, scissors, utensils, compressed air cans, etc. Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Paper doesn’t get a bag. Newspapers, magazines, paper, and cardboard at stacked and then bound with rope or twine. Picked up on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Large Trash. Futons, bicycles, beds, couches, stoves, etc. Picked up the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month. This also requires that you call ahead and request pick of the items as well.
Batteries need to be returned to special containers in the city.
Non-throw away-able Trash. TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators, water heaters, computers, automotive parts, kerosene tanks, fire extinguishers, pianos, and motorcycles can’t be thrown away within the city.

While it’s fun to complain about needing to wash out all bottles and cans, remove labels and caps, and then put in the correctly colored bag, it’s not really that much of a hassle. The only real problem is the compostable trash, or “nama gomi.” Even though it has two pickups a week, the contents always manage to mold/rot by the time are ready to tie the bag up. I have taken two measures in an attempt to mitigate the stench. First, I bought a sealable container in which to actually put the trash. This turned out to be less straight forward than I had initially expected. Assuming other Japanese families also have a problem with the nama gomi smelling, I simply went to a department store and asked for an air-tight trash can/compost bin. The staff, though, appeared confused by the request and said they didn’t actually have anything like that. Undeterred, I looked around for myself and sure enough found exactly what I was looking for in the Tupperware isle (though it was labeled as a breadbox, not a trashcan. Obviously that was my mistake when asking). While this keeps the stench from leaking out into the kitchen, the food still rots in the container, and thus makes me wretch whenever I need to remove it on trash day. In order to combat this, I rummaged through the cleaning supplies left by my predecessor. I found an anti-fugus bottle, which I then sprayed the contents of my nama gomi with. This has proven to be effective-ish in keeping the smell of death away.

Let’s be honest, it really isn’t a party without cheese filled sausages.

Let’s be honest, it really isn’t a party without cheese filled sausages.

Funny Bio

Because Mark decided to show up Ryan and myself with his much more entertaining bio entry, I have been forced to rewrite my informative, serious bio as clever farce to prove that I too can do the humor. Now Ryan is forever stuck as the unfunny, straight man of the trio. Suck on that, Mark.

~Sean