2008: The Year of Garbage!
Posted by Guy on January 6, 2008
The Japanifik Calendar
On the Japanifik Calendar 2008 is the year of garbage. It started well enough. Last week there was no garbage collection until January 4. Most Japanifiks live in small apartments (average studios: 80-100 sq ft, 2bdm: 450-500 sq ft), where the kitchens have barely enough room for tiny garbage pales. Given Japan’s garbage-intensive lifestyle, it would be impossible to live with the stench of a whole week’s garbage in the Japanifik apartments.
Sure enough, starting January 1st, drive-by dumping began in earnest.
The Art of Drive-Dump
Drive-by dumping (or drive-dump for short) is carried out usually by one or more individuals from a moving vehicle, when the bag is small enough to chuck out of the window, in which case it could land anywhere, or from a momentarily stopped vehicle, when larger garbage bags are tossed into the rice paddies below the road level [to prevent unsightly garbage strewn on the roads!]
Note: Although the bamboo fields in and around Japanifik (both public and privately owned) are strictly reserved for illegally dumping of white goods, kitchen appliances, household electrical and electronic gadgets, old computers, monitors and printers (occasionally unwanted cars are left there, too), some enterprising drive-dumpers broke with the tradition this year and lobbed their ordinary garbage over the fences.
JapanifiK 
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