Reasons Why Switzerland and Japan Have Less Litter
Litter is one of England’s most pressing problems, with it being nearly impossible these days to walk down a street, without having to pick up litter dropped by residents or tourists, due to a combination of not having personal responsibility and poor town planning. Read about simple ideas for councils to reduce litter.
But some countries have hardly any litter. So why is this? In this post, we’ll focus on two countries: Switzerland and Japan.
It’s illegal to drop litter in England, but many people don’t take much notice. Despite councils having the power to fine and issue Litter Abatement Orders to private landowners.
Switzerland (clean, pristine and litter-free)
Switzerland is one of the world’s most beautiful, clean and green countries. It’s not the culture to drop litter, and recycling is a almost a national pastime! Recently, the Swiss government has upped the fines. Throwing away just a sandwich wrapper or cigarette butt will be a standard fine (around £90). Or £180 for 2 items of litter. And larger fines from £200 to around £18,000 (20,000 Swiss Francs).
If you dropped so much as a sweet wrapper in Switzerland, the police would be after you. And you would never have rivers choked with litter, like we do here.
How Strict Rules Keep Streets Clean
In Switzerland, dropping litter is on a par with theft. Many cantons (regions) set on-the-spot fines for dropping rubbish, with harsh penalties for serious or repeated offences. Daily checks are carried out by council staff. As a result, it’s never the case that you get there what you get here:
- Rivers clogged with years-old rubbish
- Streets with dropped cans, bottles and litter.
- Supermarket surrounded by litter.
- People dropping litter out of car windows.
It helps that Switzerland (like most of Europe) has deposit return schemes, where people get money back, if returning their bottles or cans to vending machines.
The law has been delayed in the UK, as the English government does not want glass bottles included. Yet many countries have included glass in deposit return schemes for decades.
In countries with deposit return schemes, plastic bottle recycling is over 80%, cans above 90% and glass around 95%. Some people even make an income, just going around hovering up litter, and getting money for popping it back into machines!
Clean Up UK has a wonderful nationwide army of litter-picking volunteers. But it’s disheartening for them, to see streets soon swimming in rubbish again. If they knew that the litter would not return (thanks to fines, deposit return schemes, zero waste packaging and more litter bins), their work would be more rewarding.
Why Japan’s Streets are Almost Litter-Free
Another country where you’ll never find litter on the streets is Japan. People who walk their dogs, even carry little bottles of water, and ‘wash the pavement’ after a poop!
Why no litter? For two reasons. One is that as an isolated set of islands with many mountains, there are few places to ‘shove everything to landfill’. One town even has 45 different recycling categories!
The other is ”Meiwaki’. This word means to avoid causing trouble to others, and this includes not dropping litter.
Just like Quakers don’t play the lottery (because someone desperate has likely spent their electricity bill on a ticket so it’s their money you are winning), Japanese people know that if they drop litter, someone else has got to pick it up, wildlife could be harmed, or dropped glass could cut a child’s foot or a dog’s paw.
Locals even play a game ‘Spogomi’, to see who can pick up the most litter, in the least time. In East London, groups have used litter-picking kits to do the same, on Hackney Marshes.
People in Tokyo cannot believe it, when they see that there is not one piece of litter on the streets (even when litter bins were removed, after nerve gas left in them caused a terrorist attack in 1995).
There are no ‘anti-litter signs’ in Japan, as they are not needed. The only signs are for tourists, to let them know that when visiting their country, it’s not their job to pick up litter that tourists leave behind.
