I am not an expert on this question (some PDMLers visited Japan many times), but from what I learned during my trip is that the reason for this is primarily cultural (and to some extent - financial), as opposed to the theories based on the terrorist attack threat discussed here. I've been told that in Japan they have very few (if at all) municipal workers that clean. From the very childhood, people are used to clean after themselves. An example I was given is that schools don't have custodians. Rather, students learn to clean up the classroom after theselves (they also serve the meals and cleanup after that themselves, - you have a few students in class responssible for that every day, on the rotating basis).
The economics component (which is still culturally motivated) is that the trash utilization is very expensive, and people pay for trash collection much more than what it is in the US, and even in Europe (I know it is very expensive in Switzerland). Hence, people avoid/minimize that expense in the municipal (and private) budget. There are trash and recycling receptacles on many (most? all?) trains, often at the train stations; there are recycling receptacles next to numerous beverage wending machines (which can be found on almost every corner; and most train stations would have several of them, often several per a platform). What is interesting that while some public restrooms have an air dryer for the hands, many others - don't. People are expected to have a handkerchief to wipe their hands (if my sources were correct). Yet another interesting point (if correct), - which also relates to "germaphobia" pointed out by P.J.. - I am not sure, if you are making that conclusion based on the face masks that you see often on people on the streets, - I've been told that the concept is rather different. Presumably, people are wearing face masks not to avoid catching the germs, but rather to avoid spreading them. [*] ------------------ [*] That reminds me of an old joke about two men sitting in a bar, drinking beer. Both are holding their beer mugs with an (inconvenient) untypical way of holding the handle straight away from the face, drinking from the side opposite to the handle. Seeing that, they ask each other about the reason. First: "To avoid contracting germs, and you?" Second: "To avoid spreading them..." Cheers, Igor -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
