Garbage & Recycling in Japan - Get Your Degree in GOMI!
By Shane Sakata • Apr 15th, 2008 • Category: General
GOMI is an acronym for the Garbage Organization & Monitoring Institution and you can get your degree right here! You finally made it to Japan and you thought that you were well prepared - you’ve mastered the currency conversion, you’ve memorized Japanese for Busy People and you’ve read all the tips and tricks that you could find about living in Japan. But, there is one more thing that you need to do to make your life in Japan a lot easier; In order to be accepted by your neighbors and avoid receiving nasty notes in your mailbox from your landlord (that you can’t read) you need
to master GOMI.
I’d wager you think that recycling is a good thing and I’d even bet that you think that you already know how to do it. Think again, dealing with your garbage (gomi) in Japan is no easy task! Even if you come from a place like California where recycling is commonplace, you will find that the Japanese take recycling to a whole new level and that’s where GOMI comes in. It is the mission of the organization to educate you on the proper sorting and disposal of your trash and to ensure the survival of the GOMI Guru.
Evidence of recycling is apparent everywhere in Japan. Apartment buildings have whole rooms dedicated to it and almost every convenience store, fast food restaurant and train platform has at least two receptacles for trash conveniently placed for your educated use. But do you know how to use these facilities correctly? Study hard and you may be one of the lucky few who can attain the status of a GOMI Guru.
GOMI Level 1 - Three Categories
The Tokyo International Communications Committee offers up a handy, if somewhat overwhelming, guide to trash collection in the Tokyo metropolitan area where they describe the three main categories into which you need to separate your trash as follows:
- Combustible trash (moeru gomi), which includes kitchen garbage, clothes and paper products.
- Non-combustible trash (moenai gomi), which includes plastics, metals and dishes.
- Recyclable Trash (shigen gomi)which includes items such as PET bottles, newspaper, cardboard and batteries.
Each of these categories of gomi are collected on a different day and need to be placed in the appropriate bag designated by your local community. These bags can be purchased at your local supermarket
or convenience store.
That’s not so bad, you say - I can do that in my sleep. Congratulations, you can claim GOMI 1 proficiency!
GOMI Level 2 - Segregation of Recyclable Trash
You need to further separate the recyclable trash into the various receptacles provided at your apartment complex (even your local McDonald’s will be in on the act). This is not so hard if the collection day is close at hand and most of the bins have something in them. Place the cans with the cans, the plastic bottles with the other bottles etc., 
but where do you put that battery, what about that burnt out light bulb?
I challenge you to do your recycling the day after the pick-up. If you can correctly segregate your recyclable trash then, you can claim GOMI 2 proficiency!
GOMI Level 3 - Oversized Garbage
Trash is classified as oversized (sodai gomi) if it is larger than 30 centimeters in width . This classification includes such things as bicycles and furniture. There is usually a fee and you will most likely need to make an appointment for the pick up of sodai gomi. This fee and the rules surrounding the pick up of such items varies from city to city, even within Tokyo. A further set of rules applies to appliances like televisions and refrigerators and yet another set for computers and other electronics.
If you can arrange for the proper disposal of that undersized chair that got broken because no normal sized foreigner was ever meant to sit in it then you can claim GOMI 3 proficiency!
GOMI GURU
Let me warn you: if you want to become a GOMI Guru, you will have to make some drastic changes to your lifestyle. To become a GOMI Guru you will need to master the art of the furoshiki, and you can never again eat with disposable chopsticks!
I have not yet had the honor of meeting a GOMI Guru as I think that this species is now endangered and has been since the invention of disposable chopsticks. Authorities are working diligently to ensure the survival of the species.
The Garbage Organization & Monitoring Institution thanks you for your time today and is doing a survey to determine the state of GOMI in Japan. Please let them know your level of GOMI proficiency. Your participation in this unscientific poll for this imaginary institution is appreciated.
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Shane Sakata is a resident of Mihama in Chiba, about thirty minutes outside of Tokyo on the JR Keiyo Line. Shane grew up in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada and then moved with her husband to his home state of Hawaii in 1994, which is where she calls home when she’s not in Japan. From Hawaii it was on to Japan where she spent the better part of four years from 1994-1998. She is now back in Japan and sharing all that she learns about the things to do and see in the Tokyo metropolitan area at The Tokyo Traveler: http://www.thetokyotraveler.com
Her personal blog is at: http://www.atypicallife.com
Email this author | All posts by Shane Sakata | Shane Sakata 's website
Garbage & Recycling in Japan - Get Your Degree in GOMI!…
Do you do your gomi the right way here in Japan? In some neighborhoods, strict obachans keep the locals honest while in others people tend to follow the rules. Do you?…
Where I am from we have garbage and recycling and everything goes in one or two of those bins and you are done. It`s simple and I like it!
I actually don`t mind the laws where I am living now either but in Musahino-shi where I used to live they were just crazy. The garbage rules were changed the year I was a student here four years ago…..also in Musashino-shi….and we got explanations in English but we also had so much garbage returned to us. Our housekeeper would go through our garbage and find evidence of whose it was (looking for names etc) and then dump it back in front of our doors (I was a good girl and used to separate my garbage quite well!)…..Eventually the foreign house realized it was`t working gathered us all together and showed us a powerpoint presentation on HOW TO SEPARATE GARBAGE PROPERLY! I am not joking….
In Musashino-shi plastic (all kinds of plastic) goes in the burnable rubbish….although CLEAN plastic was separate. Plus you needed special bags for burnable and non-burnable and clear bags for all other stuff. Except paper had to be put it out in a burnable paper bag?! Oh and it was a different type of bag again for batteries etc!
Having moved a couple of times now I am used to getting used to the different laws and luckily now my oya-san is really friendly and easy going. When I asked her recently if I should throw out clothes that had buttons in the non-burnable she just said ` Who cares, whatever is fine!` I like her attitude!
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A powerpoint presentation? That was a bit overboard, Lulu!
I have no problem with recycling but like you I am used to two bins and done so the rooms dedicated to recycling here seem over the top to me.
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Yep, you pretty much need a degree to understand Gomi in Japan! Let me assure you that your neighborhood oba-chan is lurking in the shadows just waiting for you to put that metal can in the burnables section! And when you do, she’ll pounce and take you to school boy!
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I wish the people in my area would just pick the garbage off the ground …..that would be a start. Coming from Hawaii the litter problem in this country was surprising. The next generation needs to get a handle on it.
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Yeah, Hawaii is nice like that. New York, though, is enough to make you puke some days.
I’ve read that they’re burning plastic again in places where it was forbidden for years. Supposedly, burning at higher temperatures eliminates Dioxin emissions. Wow! Burning at high temperatures; There’s a feat of modern-day technology. I mean, how much BS do they expect people to swallow? Wait, don’t answer that one.
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You guys mentioned Hawaii - there are rubbish cans everywhere there! Here’s a cute story for you. We had a guest come to visit and he came home one day and proudly announced that he knew some Hawaiian. So we asked him what he had learned? He said he knew how to say trash - “Mahalo” - well my hubby and I just about fell off our chairs laughing before we asked him how he figured that one out. He said that it was one the front of all the rubbish cans so he assumed it meant trash! (FYI - Mahalo means thank you but that’s how many trash cans there are in public places in Hawaii :)).
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