Garbage Trucks
Why would anyone post about garbage trucks?
Well, they are pretty unique in Japan. They are - first of all - TINY because they need to be to get through the many narrow, winding streets that makes up Tokyo suburbia.
Secondly, and more uniquely, they play this happy, cheerful music as they go, giving you the feeling that you should run for the ice-cream truck. They don’t do early morning runs like back home, thankfully, so they make a good 11am wake up call. But still, the music is bizarre. And catchy. I’ve caught myself humming it some days.
Not all trucks play music, it should be pointed out. Some are simply a recorded announcement played again and again. What they say is beyond my comprehension, but my best educated guess is that it’s extolling the city government’s disposal program.
The garbage disposal method is interesting. I live in Yokohama so we have the insane recycling program to contend with. But even in other prefectures, the garbage is left in their bags under nets on the side of the street (to stop crows and strays getting at it). Japan is a relatively clean country, when you think about how many people live here - but one thing that often gets to me is the smell. I think that if they tried using BINS for that garbage, they wouldn’t have the crow or smell problem anymore.
Ha, but then, how could they inspect our garbage to make sure that we’ve properly sorted everything?
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April 28th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I loooove their “happy, cheerful music” too!
My favorite trick to play on nama gaijin on their first day of work is when the typical Yokohama musical honey wagon (Septic Tank Truck) or garbage truck can be heard, I start gathering money and writing down a list of favorite ice cream flavors. Then we send the noob gaijin out to buy from the musical “ice cream truck” for the girls and myself in the office. Hee, hee.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
I really like what you write about waste collection in your city.
would you like to tell us more, like how the government approach the citizen to sort/separate their waste? how’s the youth involved? how long did it take for people to sort their waste into that many categories?
anyway, I’m from Indonesia. 7 hours away from tokyo by plane.
October 10th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
I wrote a little about the Yokohama Recycling program here. . I don’t know if there’s any youth involvement really.