How Japan Keeps Clean #TeamSeas

hello world i find that most people who visit japan comment on how clean it is this used to surprise me i always see garbage on the streets but yeah i guess it's decently clean why is that especially when it's kind of hard to find a garbage can you can easily find can and bottle recycling near vending machines but a straight-up garbage can out in the wild it can be difficult to come by and yet there is very little litter on the streets well there used to be many more garbage cans but following the tokyo subway sarin attack by a cult in 1995 they were removed as a security measure since then few of the removed garbage cans have returned to public spaces like sidewalks washrooms and parks it turns out that instead of garbage flowing through the streets people just brought the garbage home with them nowadays your best bet to find a place to dispose of waste outside of home is at convenience stores which you can find over 50 000 of them in japan and so that i don't have the internet police coming at me yes there are train stations that have places to dispose of waste they often use clear bags so that you can easily see what's inside them in any case my point is that there's not a lot of places to dispose of waste yet the streets are relatively clean so why is this many many people take their trash home but there's more to it than that i think it's safe to say that ingrained into the japanese education system is cleaning up after yourself you can see this after school lunch where they all put away their dishes there are certain students on duty to make sure everything is collected properly and then taken to the kitchen students even have to clean their teeth after the classroom is quickly cleaned up with everyone pitching in are they doing this in the most efficient way i don't think so but that's okay since they're not really finding much dirt there aren't any janitors so it's up to students to keep the classrooms hallways and bathrooms clean so if you're a student and make a mess you're not only creating more work for yourself but all your classmates this kind of self-responsibility for both keeping clean and cleaning up carries over into all aspects of life for example let's take people's homes where the japanese feel responsible for not only cleaning inside of their property but the public areas around them as well my wife's uncle explains foreign me while i think daily cleaning is not necessarily the norm it's very common to see seniors out in the morning cleaning in front of their homes like this ojisa who is not my uncle he told us he saw that this area was messy with leaves so he just came out and cleaned it judging from his garbage dust pan and where he was i'm assuming he lived in the public housing on the other side of the hedge he said that no one asked him to clean he just thought someone had to do it so he did it not every japanese is a do-gooder like this but i guess there's enough of them that it adds up i personally pick up any trash that finds its way around my house and perhaps every month or so i'll give the area a sweep and a hose down with water but i'd be lying if i said i cleaned on the daily just like how people clean around their homes shopkeepers and staff also clean around where they work as well some local business associations organize workers to clean the area in shinjuku a prominent business and government district in tokyo the cleaning group is called shinjuku clean every morning one or two people will tidy up the streets however once a month they have a big clean up day with 40 or 50 people which is when i shot this i'll just emphasize this point in case it isn't clear the workers are not hired by the business association but rather are staffed from the local businesses they all take turns beautifying the neighborhood they work in if you look around you also see many individuals cleaning up as part of their job like the construction workers who have a few spare moments are this attendant before his booth opens up and this bus driver who cleans up his vehicle at the end of every shift i'm sure he's happy they got a robot to do this part of the job while not every worker in every business has cleaning duties in general i think you'll find that there's a high level of self-responsibility for cleaning and that cleaning is a part of everyday work life in japan so does japan have workers that only clean of course for example these guys specialize in cleaning up gum from the streets they're pretty rare to see outside of busy areas but what you will see everywhere are silver jinzai kingdom hey nancy kang drive chandragan sanji khanna you'll often see them cleaning up public places like parks and walking paths silver jinzai ginzar seniors hence the silver in the name they'll do all sorts of part-time work around the community with a popular one being local cleanup for this cleaning of public spaces it's the local government that foots the bill as i mentioned in a previous video about local tokyo neighborhoods you might also find them doing crosswalk duty around schools or staff and bike parking lots in all their capacities they act as extra eyes and airs on the street keeping them safe clean and organized you'll also see silver jinzai in the private sector like at senior care homes or in train stations this particular train line is owned by the tokyo metropolitan government so this would technically be paid by the government but most train lines are private now after seeing so many manual tools being used for some reason i felt happy for this guy who got to use the floor cleaning machine another aspect to keeping the streets clean is to do something with all the collected waste if you have a home then you'll most likely be part of a neighborhood garbage group called gomitoban our garbage duty it might be just your household that's part of it or it could be 20 or your area may not have it at all but generally how they work is that each household will take turns making sure the bins and bags are put out waste separation is done correctly garbage is covered with a net and that after everything is picked up the area is clean yoga for group living like in apartments public housing and condos the responsibility can vary for some there will be an outside company hired to manage the cleanup and maintenance of the property for others they might organize some of the cleaning themselves once dropped off at collection points the city is responsible for picking up the majority of waste i was impressed to see the spring in the step of the waste management people for others living in japan is it just this area or do all the crews sprint around like it's some kind of sports competition i was also impressed that except for new year's their weekly collection schedule never changes if they say they'll pick up on thursday they'll pick up on thursday even with typhoons it's very hard for me to recall if they've never not come to collect the waste speaking of typhoons we had a huge one hit our area and there was large large-scale flooding of the sports field along the edogawa river and yeah those were teenagers on top of the toilets enjoying a beautiful flooding night kids these days while running along the riverbank after the water receded i noticed piles of garbage nicely piled up i was fortunate enough to meet a baseball group that all got together to clean their local field i saw that it was not only the players but the coaches and parents that were all pitching in as well group cleaning also occurs with planned events like with fireworks over here they have hundreds of thousands of people visit to watch the local fireworks the waste gets left in designated areas i know that the next day there are people that come and clean up as well but by and large the majority is either left in the designated areas are packed up and taken home by the spectators and of course there's the world famous cleaning that's done by japanese soccer fans i know that there are other groups like the one that rachel and june volunteer with that do beach cleanups they trash tagged me ages ago to make a video about cleaning and because i'm serious about dragging other youtubers into this i'm taking life where i'm from so is that late than never actually it turns out i'm right on time since mr beast and mark rober just launched team seas which is an initiative to get 30 million pounds of plastic out of the ocean by raising 30 million dollars so i'm challenging you to do some cleanup in your area and join me in contributing to the tmc's cause at teamsees.org so i started off by asking the question of why japan is clean perhaps a lot of modern practices can be partially attributed to shinto and buddhism for shinto priests and mikos cleaning the jinja precincts is a very important part of their job and has been a central part of their duties for over 1 200 years sweeping the grounds is closely connected with the idea of ritual purification harae or misogyny physical cleanliness and tidiness is an important part of that it's why you purify yourself upon entering a shrine's grounds at home or on vacation japanese can also be said to do ritual purification in the form of misogy by having a bath and cleaning their entire body i wonder if it's super misogy if you're cleaning the bath that cleaned the people and so if you're cleaning the cleaning cloths that's super super no greg it doesn't work that way okay i guess not buddhism also has a similar attitude to cleaning i quote cleanliness is the most basic practice that all forms of japanese buddhism have in common in japanese buddhism it is said that what you must do in the pursuit of your spirituality is clean clean clean this is because the practice of cleaning is powerful [Music] i found it amusing that after crawling through muddy caves we received some premium boot cleaning services at the end of the journey although it may be the company being self-serving and wanting clean boots that go back on their rental shelves and this is a convenient place to do it also just outside of the caves these chickens had diapers in this area it seems like every living being is doing their job to keep things clean do you know how japanese take their shoes off at the entrance the ginkgo in order to keep their houses clean well i found that ritual is also observed when working on the buses thanks for watching see you next time peace how does your country keep clean

Channel: Life Where I'm From

Views: 1,408,496

Keywords: teamseas, japan garbage, japan clean, cleaning japan, life where i'm from, lwif

Id: BOGMkgnc2YY

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Phokasi]

The Japanese attitude towards public cleaning seems so different from the Western cultures I've been a part of, not an easy model to emulate. But I was encouraged by seeing how they do it in schools, with the children responsible for a little bit of cleaning each day. That would make a great start for the next generation, if we try it in the West.

[u/ctsinclair]

I was in Berlin, Prague, and Munich in Sep 2021 and really impressed how clean the streets were. And there not a zillion trash cans. In the US we have zillions of trash cans/receptacles and still have trash floating around our roads. Difference in consumption?

Also the highways were quite clean too. In the US, there are always tire treads and debris and accumulated rocks and dirt on the shoulders and sometimes in the lanes.