Recycling

Recycling rules have become increasingly strict over the years, so pay attention to the rules in your area. If you aren't sure how to dispose of something, find out.

Most towns and cities provide a guide similar to the one pictured here, explaining which items can be disposed of on which days. A calendar of pick-up dates is provided.

• Are there special bags you need to use? (In our area, we must buy clear plastic bags with the town name stamped on them).
• Does your trash need to be labeled? (We are required to write our name on the bags.)
• What can be put in the bags?
• What days are pick up and when can you put your bags out? (Some areas prohibit placing bags out the night before.)
  How do you recycle cans and bottles? (Wash them, remove caps, removed plastic spouts from glass bottles, do you need to remove labels).
• What are the rules for batteries, furniture, electronics?

NOTE: SPECIAL DAY FOR POST-STORM WASTE After a major typhoon or flood, people are likely to have excessive amounts of miscellaneous garbage from damaged homes. There will be a special pick-up for this unsorted trash.

Even though we have more than a dozen different recycling options, there isn't a section for non-PET plastic bottles, such as shampoo bottles and the like. Apparently, they are to be burned. The garbage service doesn't pick up styrofoam or packing worms either.

Every bit of garbage goes in a clear plastic bag with your name on it to be reviewed by the garbage patrols in our village. There is a 6-page pamphlet explaining the details of the garbage process. Half the people here end up burning it all in their incinerators or burying it in a hole just because they can’t figure out what to do. Burning is still common in rural areas so don't be shocked. Farmers incinerate straw, leaves and tree branches and tend to just toss in whatever else they have to avoid a trip to the Clean Center.

THE CLEAN CENTER

People inevitably end up disposing of "non-allowed" items by throwing them on the riverbank in the middle of the night, burying them in deep holes at the end of their fields, leaving them in heaps around their barns or hiring someone else to haul them off. But there are facilities designed to handle waste.

First, we had to go to the town hall to get an official permission paper to allow us to enter the "Clean Center". At the town hall, he had to show his driver's license to get a crisp white paper with an official red stamp on it declaring that he indeed did have his domicile in Jonan. Why couldn't the official person at the dump check his driver's license and save the world one more piece of official paper? Who knows. Certainly, the Clean Center would not want impostors or outsiders paying a fee to dump their garbage.

Next, we take this official document up the hill to the new (within the past 6 years) "Clean Center". The Center in our town is only open 9-5 on workdays, no holidays or weekends and it is closed for lunch. It is easier to go to the dentist than dump the trash. The grand entrance looks like you might be entering an amusement park - the winding smoothly paved road is lined with whimsically pruned trees and bright novelty flowers. At the top of the hill stands a gleaming building with two tall pink smoke stacks that emit rainbows I guess, because we didn't see any smoke. It was so clean that I was afraid maybe we had entered a hospital parking lot rather than the city dump.

We pull up to the little booth where an official city worker, in uniform, greets us and inspects our freshly stamped document. With his approval, we are given a card to put into a machine that will record the weight of our vehicle. When the sound beeps and the green light bleeps, we proceed forward to a great metal door that slowly opens as our truck approaches and we enter the vault. Inside, there are four more doors, labeled with big numbers, that lead to the super efficient burners that will incinerate our burnables. Two aproned and gloved attendants scurry to our vehicle and usher us to door number four. It was almost like a game show - I was quite thrilled. We empty the contents of our bags and boxes onto a great tray and the attendants rifle through our garbage, making sure that everything there is actually burnable.

There is something disconcerting about sharing all of your trash with other people - they get such an intimate view of your life. We passed the test. They bowed as we left and once we were gone, they would push the button and cremate our trash. I'm so glad they spared me from watching our dearly departed trash burn. It was almost ceremonious.

We drove out of this building to the next gleaming entrance, where non-burnable trash is accepted. This was a lively place. We were the only vehicle but there were 4 attendants in snappy uniforms and shining safety helmets who rushed over to inspect our goods. We were able to dispose of most of it but they could not take broken roof tiles, shingles, broken concrete blocks or plaster board. We had to make several more inquiries before we found a place that would allow us to dump the roof tiles and concrete but we have yet to find a place that will accept the asphalt shingles or plaster board.

Note: If you have construction waste (plasterboard scraps or concrete blocks) you will have to either find a construction company to haul it off (maybe a kind student?) or go to a private landfill and pay for the privilege.