Hotel Garbage Etiquette

Okay, so here�fs a burning question I�fve always wondered about. Do hotels in Japan have to sort the garbage thrown out by guests? When I stay at a hotel I always set my recyclable cans, bottles, and newspapers next to the waste basket, but I thoroughly mix everything else (bags, plastic food takeout containers, chopsticks, neatly wrapped coffee grounds�c). I usually leave it all packaged up in a tidy bundle. But does some poor worker later have to sort this fine accumulation into burnable versus nonburnable items? Or do hotels lump everything together as nonburnable garbage?

No matter how much I try to minimize my trash, I always end up with plenty, and I�fve never known whether I should leave it in a way that simplifies sorting as opposed to compressing it into as small a space as possible.

Does anyone know?

Garbage and recycling regulations vary widely between the municipalities. Some municipalities do not even require you to separate burnable from non burnable. Others require you to sort your garbage into more than a dozen categories. Furthermore, the definition of what is burnable varies from municipality to municipality.

As a hotel guest, it is not necessary to research the local garbage regulations. Some hotels do provide garbage bins with two pockets, one for burnable and one for non-burnable or recyclable items.

Just like you wrote, the best thing you can do, is to place non-burnable items like PET bottles and bins next to the garbage bin. And the rest goes into the garbage bin.

"bins"= glass bottles and jars. I sometimes make that mistake myself these days;-)

The way hotels treat their waste seem to differ greatly depending on the hotel.

I think that a lot of hotels may be treating their garbage as "industrial waste (sangyo-haikibutsu)" which is categorized differetly from household waste. In most municipals, household waste is to be sorted while industrial waste is not.

But from a quick internet check, I found Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay boasting about how sensitively they separate their garbage; 1) raw waste, 2) paper waste, 3) burnable waste, 4) non-burnable waste, 5-a) bottles of certain shapes, 5-b) other bottles, 6-a) aluminum cans, 6-b) other cans, 7) PET bottles. Great advertisement in this ecology-conscious era, I suppose.

Btw, the vast MM21 district of Yokohama, where there are about three hotels, there was a huge network of underground tubes that vacume whatever waste a person throws in the dust shoot of any of the buildings in the district, and they would be automatically collected into one waste treatment building in the district and finally turned into ashes right there. However, as this super-hi-teck facility was eating up too much of our taxes and was doing nothing to improve recycling, it was recently closed down.

I think it would be fun to ask your question to the concierge of your hotel as you're checking in, wherever you go in the world, I mean.

Thank you for the quick replies. Shoot--I was hoping it wasn't that complicated! I never saw a hotel with waste baskets that suggested sorting, or any other instructions regarding sorting, and I do stay in some pretty local places in many regions. So it's interesting to hear that they exist. I always figured (and frankly, hoped) that hotel trash maybe had some sort of special classification like Uco suggested, even though it is environmentally unsound to treat all garbage alike.

Well, I suppose I can ask at each hotel, although I have always resisted that. (Uco, you have a different idea of fun than I do!) Obsessively sorting my garbage while on vacation is not something I'm up for, but I've always had twinges of conscience when I smushed everything together, wondering if someone would have to sort it all later. It would be easier for them (and me) if I didn't smush, but if it all goes into a single waste stream it's so much tidier to put it in one compressed bag. It's confounding how much trash you can accumulate even when you try not to. (My idea of fun is a banquet of assorted takeout food consumed in the room.)

Uma, don't you like to talk to the locals when you travel around the world? I do. And it's nice dipping your butt into the pool while you talk to the bartender as it is nice killing time with the conceirge while you're waiting for your tour bus :)

Well, I'm pretty shy by nature, and I am very self-conscious about my Japanese. (I can usually get by, but I tend to panic.) Most places I stay are inexpensive business hotels or local ryokans where the staff don't speak much English. So unfortunately I don't usually engage in chitchat (or broach the subject of garbage sorting).

I envy you your warm, outgoing nature, Uco! (And I always appreciate your generous and thoughtful contributions to this forum.)

I have some experience of the Toyoko Inn policy (just from observation), paper and cardboard seems to be placed in separate large containers, all other garbage from each floor is placed in large plastic bags and the floor number is marked on each bag. This is in case something is thrown out in error.

I often use a lot of cardboard and newspapers for the shipping of parcels. Whatever is left over, I take down to the cleaners at the rear of the hotel.

If you wish to recycle your own garbage, you can always take cans, bottles and packaging to the nearest C-store or supermarket.

How ironic to mention Toyoko Inn in this thread!
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