Coming from a country in which Recycling is something you do if you're a little extra committed. Like being sportive, or a vegetarian or a charity worker.
Which means, it's something good, people know about it, but of something you wouldn't walk out of your way to do.
Which also mean, no one will frown upon you if mix your plastics and your papers, or your PET Bottles.
In Japan, however, that's a very different story!
In Japan, if you don't go by the rules, you can bet that someone will let you know soon enough... like everything, this country FORCES you to become civilized. No one questions the rules, if it's a rule, then that's good enough for them, no one would try to apply their personnel judgment at all... unlike in other places, in which people evaluate the laws, regulations and rules against their personnel beliefs and only abide by the given rule or law if it happens to be aligned with them and they are "convinced" by them.
Which explains why many people would break a rule or the law, especially if no one is looking.
In Arab countries in general, breaking a rule is a measure of importance, people would be "proud" if they break a given law or a rule, since it means that they are "above" this rule or law.
In Syria, where I come from, people who break the rules are often refered to as "clever" and "street smart" and "survivors" and those who humbly obey the law or role are referred to as "simple" or "unclever" and "naive"... And if you would point out to someone who is breaking a rule, for example, throwing garbage in the streets... then you're practically asking for trouble... since the automatic answer would be "it's NONE of your business"
In Japan, it is the other way around... if you break a rule means that everyone is "Licensed to Frown Upon You!"
Try it, ride your bicycle in a crowded street and people will give you polite gestures not to use your bicycle... some people might even bump you in the shoulder intentionally (yes... I had to try it out myself ^_^)
It is not easy to see a Japanese angry as hell... the only time I saw a Japanese getting angry ... (and I mean, realllly angry) is when someone breaks a rule "in-your-face" and with no remorse or intention to apologize.
This was the single "culture shock" which I have personally experienced in my two (2) visits to Japan so far. People take role a little bit too seriously in Japan! Very, very seriously.
Maybe I think the Japanese hate their own politicians... because their politics career is filled by deception and lying...
Ok, so back to Recycling...
I want to show you how you recycle a PET bottle in your house in Japan... which is in the given example, a bottle of Iced Green Tea
1) You drain the bottle in the sink, and raise it with water.
2) Next, you have to "strip" the bottle, Find the striated part of the plastic (as shown in red arrow in the picture). Every plastic bottle in Japan has this striated part so that it would be easy for people to do this step.
3) Remove the plastic top cover and the plastic wrappings, you will have to dispose of each one these separately (yep... separately!)
4) As shown, each of the three parts of your PET bottle is disposed separately:
a)The Bottle Top
b) The PET Bottle itself
c) And the plastic wrapping, which can be thrown with the rest of the plastic (and paper) garbage.
My host family did have a seperate one for papers and another for plastic... although something tells me they do inspect their garbage before taking it to the garbage man.If you don't do the above steps, chances are that the garbage man will refuse to take your garbage bags from the road side and simply let them there... there is a possiblity of being stumped with a fine if you were cought "not recycling"... reminds me of the days when no one used to fasten their seat belts in the arabic countries, and it was compuslary in the western world... give it 10 more years and recycling will become mandatory everywhere, just as seat belts now... ^_^
P.S. for those interested in further readings about recycling in Japan, please visit Wikipedia here
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