Extreme recycling

last updated 8 January 2015

Yokohama, Japan

The city of Yokohama has presented residents with a 27-page manual on how to sort more than 500 types of trash for recycling. Land is too costly in Japan to be used for landfills, so most trash is burned. The new recycling push aims to cut air pollution by reducing the need for incineration. The instructions are extremely detailed: Lipstick, for example, would normally go into “burnables,” but if the tube is empty, it can go into “small metals.” A single sock must go into “burnables,” but a decent matched pair can be put in “used cloth.” The city is asking volunteers to monitor compliance by poking through their neighbors’ trash.