A Note on Japan and trash:

The Japanese have a very complicated, or rather intricate way of disposing unwanted and used goods. I cannot tell yet whether it is efficient or not, but it surely seems environmentally conscious. One cannot not consider what his/her trash consists of. There are several categories: Burnable goods, recyclable goods (plastic bottles, tin cans, glass), non-burnable goods, large burnable goods, large non-burnable goods and what I can only gather as hazardous waste. Every category has its own color and its own pick-up day, the color corresponding to symbols on the appropriate calendar for your area. And each category has a specific bag (colored accordingly) for the disposal of the said goods. I honestly feel like there should be a separate room in every house devoted solely to the sorting and storage of categorized waste. I have not experiences this yet, but apparently failure to sort your waste correctly may result in it being returned to you, so watch out. Berkeley has got nothing on this place.