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Burning trash is not cool.

August 1st, 2006 by James

I am enjoying the feeling of fresh air from my window. Suddenly, I start to smell something. Something is burning, and the nasty smell of smoke enters my apartment. I am forced to close my windows, sometimes turning my room into a sauna in the summer heat. Why does this happen? Because the people in a nearby house think it is cool to burn trash:

Sometimes they burn what appears to be leaves (they only have 1 tree near their house), sometimes it looks to be cardboard, but most of the time I have no idea what is burning. All I can see is that the contents of the barrel are ablaze. This is not farm land, this is the highly populated center of a city of 156,000 people. When these hicks burn their stuff, a lot of people can smell the smoke. They even do it at night, when everyone is home from work:

I’ve asked some Japanese friends if such a practice is legal, and they aren’t sure. Trash is Japan is sorted into “burnables” and “non-burnables”, but the burnable trash is taken away to special facilities where it is incinerated. I’ve heard that it is ok for farmers to burn leaves and dead vegetation (a practice that disgusts me), but can it actually be legal to do something like this in an urban area? Why do all their neighbors put up with this shit? Am I, as the only foreigner in this neighborhood, the only person offended by this practice?



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7 Comments »

Comment by Overoften
2006-08-01 11:11:49

You’re probably not the only one who’s pissed off about it, but to call the police, if not useless, would mess up the wa, man.
Despite the fact that your man is doing such an efficient job of buggering the wa anyway.
So perhaps you should call the Fire department and say you that a lot of smoke is emanating from your neighbour’s house. Should get him the ticking off he deserves.

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Comment by AndyM
2006-08-01 15:03:18

Check with the local city or ward office as they are the ones that control whether it is allowed or not. If burning rubbish is OK, then there’s not a lot you can do. If your other neighbours also aren’t happy about this then get them to do something about it.
In my locality (in the depths of Fukushima) burning stuff like this is a no-no and seems to be universally accepted and enforced.

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Comment by i masturbate
2006-08-01 15:42:57

Something like this happend here once back in the states when some Chinaman was burning his trash in his backyard. He started a brushfire and burned down his whole neighborhood.

Anyways, why don’t you stop your bitching and just get the balls to put on a smile, walk over next door, and ask the person politely to discontinue their practice? If that doesn’t work, just go to the police or steal the fuckin barrel! Why do you need our advice? You going to post shit up everytime you need somebody to wipe your ass clean?

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Comment by Overoften
2006-08-01 16:03:29

Or you could retaliate by boiling buckets of your own faeces like that Tokyo gentleman.

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Comment by amaterasu
2006-08-01 18:53:29

Throw some shit in the barrel that produces the most foul smell there is. Watch neighbours grab pitchforks, have a beer, enjoy.

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Comment by Darin
2006-08-02 00:54:55

Just go to the city office or ward office or even kouban, whichever is closest and report it. Even if burning trash is legal, it is illegal to create a disturbance in most parts of Japan. So legal trash burning is only legal if it doesn’t bother anyone. Not long ago some man got arrested for walking around his yard almost naked.

I wouldn’t talk to the people directly, this isn’t America, direct conversation must be avoided at all costs. It would piss your or I off if the police came to your door and asked you to mow your lawn instead of your neighbor just doing it, but here you’d piss someone off more by going and talking to them yourself. They could find it insulting, and will most likely give you some speech about how they can do whatever the hell they want and who are you you goddamn foreigner trying to tell them what to do. On second thought, get a tape recorder and do that. If the Zainich in Osaka wins his case against the old man, then you could use that as a prior case in your own case against your own old man for mental stress caused from racial discrimination.

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Comment by Joel
2006-08-02 16:14:43

Mr “I Masturbate” must not live in Japan. Overoften is right. The direct approach will not work. Ask the police to deal with it. It is true that farmers can burn shit. They are the only ones “allowed” to under typical non-burning ordinances.
As for pranks, since it is near your house foul smelling poo and such should definitely be avoided. I would opt for some chemicals that would turn it green, or maybe a bunch of fireworks to at least make the bastards jump

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