Techy Trash Cans Take Japan by Storm as Tourists Flock to Cities!

As the number of tourists and the volume of garbage increases, cities in Japan are now adopting “smart” bins to maintain their traditionally spotless streets, which have been devoid of visible trash cans.

This week, Osaka’s Dotonbori district installed around 20 new technological trash cans called SmaGO. Using solar panels, the bin automatically detects when it is full and then compresses the waste by about 20%. It’s also connected to a smartphone app that analyzes data on the amount of trash and sends alerts to workers before it’s full.

“Some local governments are finally starting to realize that there’s nothing you can do but provide trash cans,” said Yohei Takemura, CEO of Forcetec, a startup that distributes SmaGO in Japan. “More and more people are saying they’d like to try bins to see if it makes their cities cleaner.”

After the 1995 poison gas terror attack in Tokyo by the Aum Shinrikyo cult, waste containers disappeared from many public spaces in Japan, although they are now found in high-traffic areas such as major train stations. Maiko Kimura, the city’s beautification manager at the Osaka Environmental Agency, said the city has removed them entirely to deal with overflowing garbage and the resulting complaints from citizens.

But as the number of tourist arrivals officially surpassed pre-pandemic levels last month, trash cans are becoming more common on Japan’s city streets. Last month, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida launched a policy package on overtourism that even includes support for smart trash cans, in addition to other measures such as promoting lesser-known tourist destinations.

The trash problem is exacerbated by the fact that Japan offers a wide variety of street food, such as fried octopus balls or fish-shaped cakes filled with red bean paste, and the tourists who buy them are often unaware of Japan’s strict rules on sorting garbage. at home and I don’t want to carry garbage with me.

“It’s always been normal for Japanese people to carry trash around in a bag and throw it away when they get home,” said Takemura, a surfer who started Forcetec after noticing how much trash was in the ocean.

The company imports the bins from Massachusetts-based waste management company Bigbelly, which first introduced them in Colorado nearly two decades ago. Wi-Fi-enabled Bigbelly dishes were tested in Manhattan in 2015. Takemura said Japan was initially reluctant to use them, and that it was a “big deal” to finally get Tokyo’s Omotesando shopping street to install them in 2020.

More than 200 smart trash cans can be found in other major tourist destinations, such as Kyoto’s Arashiyama bamboo forests. SmaGOs even have instructions written for foreign tourists in several languages, and are sometimes funded by sponsors to ease the burden on municipalities. For example, in Hiroshima, trash cans sponsored by snack manufacturer Calbee Inc. are decorated with the city’s oceanscape and shrimp from the brand’s signature shrimp chips.

Other Asian cities have also removed bins from the streets to keep the streets clean, including Taipei and Seoul, although the South Korean capital recently announced it will add thousands of bins over the next few years as bins, like take-out cups, begin. to gather in the streets.

Fumitake Takahashi, an assistant professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who specializes in environmental social sciences and also studies recycling behavior using SmaGO data, used the broken window theory to explain how poorly maintained trash cans on the streets encourage more people to add to the already overflowing pile of garbage.

“Sorting garbage is simply a hassle,” he said. “But maybe the power of design can help us overcome this problem, so we need to explore what would be the best design and what would be the best location for these bins.”

Emellience Partners, the venture capital arm of Japanese technology firm Biprogy Inc., sees smart trash cans as a growing industry in Japan and has invested about ¥300 million ($2 million) in Forcetec.

“We see great potential in this solution,” said Shinsuke Chiba, CEO of Emellience Partners. “After the partnership, we receive almost twice as many inquiries from municipalities.”

However, some local governments are still against trash, including in Osaka. The SmaGOs placed in Dotonbori are actually at the cost and maintenance of the shopping area with the support of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

Osaka’s Kimura said the city has no plans to add smart trash cans in the near future.

“The bins on the street actually made the city dirtier because people brought their food waste from home and it overflowed and made the area stink,” he said. “I hope that tourists have the habit of bringing their trash home or returning it to the stores where they bought their food.”