Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture – he also works part time for the empire.
Why is it that your relatives or friends in Japan tell you that they got their fully functional electronic goods such as TVs, refrigerators, music centers etc from the streets for free?
Many folks over here upgrade their electronic goods regularly to keep up with the Suzuki's. They've only had their TV for a couple of years and want an upgrade. By law, one should not just throw out their old electrical appliances.
The owner of a TV for example would go to the local convenience store and purchase a recycle sticker (which looks something like this) that they stick on the TV – the sticker in this case may cost something like 3 USD. An appointment is then arranged with the local ward office to come and pick up the TV at a particular time.
Despite what the law says, some folks just leave their stuff on the roads for others to pick up and do this because they think its a waste to have a fully functional appliance just taken away – *and* the fact that they have to pay for it to be taken away too.
Do folks in your region just leave electrical appliances in fully working order around?
Photo dug up from somewhere in my A Week in Tokyo series.
