KQED’s Los Angeles Bureau Chief and frequent Climate Watch contributor Rob Schmitz is spending six weeks in Japan, as part of the Abe Fellowship for Journalists. In the weeks to come he’ll file a ...

The economy is in a funk, and there is real fear big companies may start laying off people. Yet the talk of this metropolis of 12 million is garbage. Starting next month, the city has ordered everyone ...

TOKYO — This is a true story about what can happen if you don’t satisfy the garbage man that you are separating burnable trash from nonburnable in the world’s most densely populated metropolis. The ...

In Tokyo, we live in fear of getting caught putting out gomi, or garbage, at the wrong place, at the wrong time. And the scariest thing about gomi is the ladies--usually older and very proper--who ...

Congratulations! You’ve just signed the lease on your new apartment. When registering your new address at city hall, they should have given you a pamphlet detailing how to throw out your trash ...

Regarding garbage, the best place that I lived was in Isogo, Yokohama, in the building complex that I lived there were only 2 giant garbage bins, one was for burnable trash, another for unburnable ...