12 posts tagged discarded
A short distance from my neighbourhood, I came across all this stuff dumped by the side of the road - under a bridge in a drain. It has been there since last October I was told by a passer by! In Australia people dump stuff too, but not all over the place in huge amounts and it will almost always be cleaned up by the local council in a day or two. Here in Japan stuff is dumped all over the place - especially in waterways and in the mountains - and it can stay there for a very long time!
Quite often I come across dumped stuff that has been there for so long that it has become overgrown with weeds and almost camouflaged - a permanent part of the landscape! When the local crews come to cut the grass with their whipper snippers (weed eaters) they don’t clean it up - they JUST MOW OVER IT! This just spreads plastic and stuff even further and they leave it there!
I am convinced that the Japanese have no idea how to keep the roads, waterways and mountains clean.
Do you imagine Japan is a clean place? While the city streets and trains are certainly cleaner than most other countries, it is a different story out in rural areas. The mountains, fields, farms, and waterways are polluted with all manner of unwanted garbage.
The image of the Japanese usually painted by tour books as being “at one with nature” could not be farther from the truth.
With digital TV looming in Japan, the illegal dumping of analog TV sets has increased. 86,000 analog TV sets were found in mountains and along roadsides in Japan in 2010.
When the Japanese no longer want something they just dump it, often in the mountains or waterways.
Discarded. Stuff simply dumped by the road.
I came across this motorbike leaking petrol and oil into a major river that flows through the mountains in Isehara today. This is a pretty common sight. I’ve seen cars, trucks, scooters, motorbikes, household appliances, and even an ultralight plane dumped in the rivers and forests.
A large pile of drink cans dumped right beside the Sagami River which leads to the Pacific Ocean.
And you thought the Japanese cared about nature didn’t you.
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Discarded. A pornography magazine starring schoolgirls on the ground next to a path that leads to the junior high school.
Discarded. Imagine Japan as a clean place? Well, the public transportation system and the city streets are extremely clean, almost sanitary. There is no rubbish on the streets or trains, but in the parks, forests and waterways it is a different story.
Walk into the forest and before long you’ll come across garbage and dumped cars/bikes. Walk along through the rice fields and you’ll notice all manner of rubbish along the paths and fields. Most ends up in the waterways and then gets washed out to sea.
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