Trash, recycling, and convenience stores!

Figured I'll start posting the written portion of what I'm talking about under each video.  This will be whatever it was that I posted to Drexel's blog site.

Trash, recycling, and convenience stores!  These things work just a little bit differently here in Japan.  I'll start with the trash and recycling.  Now, from what I have read, how they handle garbage and such can be a bit different depending on what prefecture you are living in.  So, all the details I give are about Sendai, which is in the Miyagi prefecture in the northeastern part of Japan's main island, Honshu.  As a general statement, the Japanese do more separation of their garbage and recycling than we do in the USA.

The photo attached is actually a picture I just took of the trash cans in the kitchen of my unit.  The one on the left is for cans and PET bottles.  Soda cans or other soft drinks go in here, along with PET plastics, which so far it seems to pretty much just be soft drink bottles.  Plastics that are PET say so under the little recyclable triangle symbol.  Next, the bin on the right is for regular garbage, which I BELIEVE is supposed to be combustible trash.  Paper, napkins, food scraps, etc.  Finally, the middle bin is for plastics OTHER than PET bottles.  I believe these are separated because, if I'm remembering correctly from my materials science course, there are types of plastics that, when heated, either break down completely or sort of melt and are able to be reformed (recycled).  I guess PET plastics can be reformed.  Things like plastic bags from stores or meal containers from convenience stores go into the middle can.  Cardboard boxes need to be folded up and put separately from the other trash, or the city won't even pick it up.

Next, Convenience stores!  These things are actually, really... convenient here.  I know back in the US we have 7-11 and wawa, but they are only convenient... if you're lucky enough to live near one.  I know that my apartment back in Philly was about a 15-20 minute walk from the nearest wawa, which sucks when you just want something quick to eat.  Here, at least in Sendai, and the one residential area of Tokyo I was in, you can't walk more than 6-7 minutes without running into a convenience store.  This is great, because you can buy actual meals there for like 250-400 yen (2.50$-4$).  You bring it up and the person at the register asks you if you want it microwaved, then you walk back home with something to eat.  This is probably about 90% of what the convenience stores are used for here.  There's other things you would expect:  an ATM, small supplies, drinks, etc.  In short, convenience stores here truly live up to the name.