Word: trashings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
MITOYO CITY, Japan—While my host family generally expects me to help with chores around the house, one task is strictly off limits: taking out the trash. “It's just too difficult for foreigners,” she tells me. Perhaps Japan’s strict garbage disposal regulations are as daunting to an outside visitor as Tokyo’s crisscrossed subway map and a writing system with three different alphabets...
...Mitoyo City, where I am interning and living in a home-stay, trash is sorted into 18 categories, which range from burnable waste, to metallic trash, to used tempura oil. City residents divide up their own waste and deliver it to nearby collection stations on designated days. This means that every second Thursday of the month, my host parents transport their plastic waste to the collection site near city hall – except, of course, on the second Thursday of an even-numbered month, during which plastic bottles, and not common plastics, are collected. Before they do this, however...
While originally intended to reduce the amount of landfill waste in land-scarce Japan, these stringent regulations have also managed to reshape many residents’ views about trash and wastefulness. When doing groceries, my host mother seeks products with minimal wrapping—hoping to avoid the hassle of having sort through these later. My host siblings diligently wash out their plastic soda bottles before dumping them in the appropriate bin; they now tend to opt for milk when thirsty—it’s easier to dispose...
Watch TIME's video of Peter Schiff trash-talking the markets...
...Netherlands have taken the more ambitious step of consolidating all consumer and market oversight under one financial regulator while leaving soundness to another. Last year when he was still Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson endorsed this approach in his blueprint for regulatory reform. (Watch TIME's video of Peter Schiff trash-talking the markets...