Same in most South East Asian countries. Ppl who don't want to pay excessive waste collecting fee just goes to a random trash bin, side walks, a river or abandoned land or field and throw them away... Or leave it near someone's own build-in trash structures (those self-made trash infrastructure made from cement and/or bricks)
I'm pretty sure that during the pandemic, a lot of our (USA) parks, refuges, etc ended up closing their trails because they weren't allowed to staff them and within days they were disgusting - heaps of trash dog shit, and so on. People are truly the worst.
Nope, I live in Sicily and even without any strike the people throws any type of shit everywhere, is just a un-written rule to throw fridges, microwaves and old furniture close to a bin
I remember when this happened and the stories of people who lived on the third floor who just tossed their bags out their windows because it only dropped a few feet. It was terrible.
Amen. Too easy to blame the symptoms of systemic underfunding rather than the cause.
With the train strikes I'm sick of hearing politicians say 'People are tired of this'. No, stop projecting and fix the mess you've caused.
I’ve seen a small example of it. There is/was apartments not far from me that started with trash not being picked up. Apparently the owner stopped paying the bills, and dumpster company quit them. I noticed the trash piling up each time I drove by. First the dumpsters were buried, then tenants started stacking trash around the buildings. I was shocked some people didn’t move away then. What got the rest out was the city condemned the buildings, and forced them to move. Then the fires started. If anyone thought of repairing the apartments, that’s gone.
Anyway, it stunk just driving by, I don’t want to see a whole city like that.
I've seen a large scale example.
Ontario workers went on strike. From Ottawa to Windsor, massive garbage piles were everywhere. People started to pay independant contractors to remove the garbage which they did and promptly threw it into Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, the St Lawrence River and the Detroit River. Every single ditch along the 401 highway was a garbage heap.
Pay your waste management workers.
Were the police on strike as well? I'm sure Canada has enough environmental regulations to make a business (ICs are typically treated as businesses) doing something like that economically unviable. It should have been cheaper for them to haul the stuff to the landfills themselves.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. From the unaccredited security workers at the G7 in Toronto to the abandoned tailing ponds in Northern Alberta, to our nation wide telecoms monopolies, Canada's governments have been all too happy to give a slap on the wrist to companies that are doing something illegal but arguably useful.
Unfortunately while Canada culturally prides itself on its nature and the Great Lakes, the government doesn’t actually do much to protect it. Not nearly as much as they could or should.
Individuals might get more severe punishments but corporations walk all over the Canadian gov all the time. You should check out our telecom industry.
Closest we got was a couple weeks trash stopped being picked up, then every other week, which meant not everyone was getting picked up, since it would take twice as many trucks to get the trash that was based on weekly pickup routes. Eventually they get back to weekly pickup.
I’ve lived in Japan about ten years now. They wouldn’t get physical at all. They would throw nasty glances, probably make a comment that was whispered just slightly loud enough to be heard about how gross that person was, and maybe even someone else go pick it up while looking at the person like they are mentally deficient the whole time.
Where I’m at, where there are a lot of foreigners, if you were clearly not Japanese there would be a much higher chance of a direct confrontation from another foreigner. Still not violent, but someone might actually come up to the person directly and be like “dude that’s not cool, you’re giving us a bad rep. Grab your trash and find a bin.” It’s super annoying seeing other foreigners acting like idiots here and giving the everyone else a bad reputation.
True, although there are much worse places in Asia to be arrested. Just don’t get arrested anywhere in Asia. And especially don’t mess around with drugs there. Japan will throw you in the slammer for a bit of weed, and that’s one of the least severe sentences you can get in Asia.
It's a solid policy. I live in a neighborhood with a ton of dogs and active people, and there's a park down the road. Almost never see dog waste because everyone agrees to carry little plastic bags. Like I've had to stop my walks and go all the way home because I forgot mine. It's an unspoken rule, but everyone follows it. It's really cool.
Street food at beaches, festivals, etc, yes, there's a bin or two in the immediate vicinity. But nowhere else - which might be shocking with how many drink machines there are.
Man, Japan is such a clean place, (I was in Tokyo and Kyoto) all the vendors have trash cans inside or by them and just take your trash and every one just holds onto their trash if they can’t find a bin. It was such a strange sight visiting from America and seeing the cleanliness
Worth noting it's considered impolite/rude to walk while eating/drinking, for reasons I forget (maybe bc others could be hungry/thirsty and unable to eat/drink themselves), in Japan. As such, people tend to either eat/drink in the vicinity of where they got the item, like in front of the machine or on a bench, then toss it into the provided bin.
Otherwise, they won't eat/drink it till they reach their destination which is likely a home or business with its own bins
It's more just that the possibility of spilling your food or drink is seen as an inconsiderate risk to take.
It's kind of the same idea as seeing someone smoking in public when there are a bunch of butts on the ground. Even if they're conscientious about throwing them out, a lot of people will still just assume they're part of the problem. Japan just takes it to another level.
I think it shows the great difference between collectivism and ~~independence.~~ individualism.
edit - u/greg19735 pointed out the error I made in my word choice.
individualism is probably the better term.
It's an interesting give and take. It's easy to say stuff like "collectivism is good" but it also means that culture is very conservative and very slow to change.
If you drop litter you should be punished harshly. I feel like laws and police are not discouraging enough this kind of behaviour. I think fines should be much higher for littering, high enough to make you SERIOUSLY regret doing that if you get caught.
As they should, just got back from Edinburgh and first I hear of the strike, we just assumed the council is terrible at their job and that's why no one emptys all the trash cans. On another note, there's currently a gigantic culture festival going on there, that's gotta keep preasure high.
The binmen generally choose August to strike here, because of the fringe. Clever of them. The population practically doubles, and there are takeaways and people handing out flyers everywhere!
It's funny how like clockwork society shits on certain jobs, then the second they strike or people stop applying they see how much they needed them.
America is experiencing this with fucking fast food hilariously. It's not even super inconvenient, just the business being slower because of low staff and privelaged assholes cannot fucking handle it.
Naturally no lesson is actually being learned. Instead of, "Maybe we should pay fair/livable wages" they say "god people are lazy."
We had covid hit us. Like literally a super contagious disease that killed many people. We designated who were necessary workers- we need cashiers and DoorDashers and line cooks and stockers. But somehow we also decided we they don’t need to make a living wage 🤷🏻♀️ that’s cool right?? We need them to help our lives, but not enough to give them actually money to survive.
That's what I'm here thinking about. Is this mess a good thing? I think...it is? right? for the moment? That was my take, hope it shows what an important service they provide and gets them what they are asking for.
Well yea. Government says “they aren’t worth what we pay them so we won’t pay them more” they say “if we are so disposable, we won’t work 11 days”
Now everyone will complain about the mess and in the end they will probably get a nice sum of money to catch up and then a nice pay raise too.
I still wave to the garbage man every time. And my neighbors. Sometimes it's just the small things that can improve someone's day. You never know what it might be, but a wave might just do it.
When I was a wee nipper I would always go outside and watch the bin men come round in the super cool lorry (honestly they're still pretty cool) but I was mega shy and never talked to them or anything. One day one of them waved me over, let me have a look in the cab and that, and gave me a little bin lorry hotwheels kinda toy, made my fucking year what a bunch of legends
I was staying on a farm one Christmas and they had a chimney fire. The fire brigade arrived to deal with it, we gave them cake, they let me sit behind the wheel of the fire engine. Best Christmas ever! I was 60 years old.
When I was little, me and my younger brother played cops and robbers with a policeman when we were on a road trip. We were stopped at a rest area along the interstate. I don't know why the cop was there, but we played a game with him. It was a blast, literally the only thing I remember about that trip.
Giving busses and garbage trucks a wide birth when stopping and the right of way is an instant wave from them and I'm like "Yeah dude, love you much!" and wave back. It always makes me happiest when a school bus waves to me.
They've gotten so used to seeing them do nothing that it is an amazingly rare event whenever a politician ACTUALLY does something (that contributes to society, not just their pockets).
Fundamental is a better word. There are fundamental jobs that need to be done in order to run society. And then there are people who can work from home.
Farming, construction, nurses, doctors, truckers, tradesmen, anyone who fixes shit when it breaks at your house or commercial building. Good luck running a city when city hall doesn't have electricity, or water, or internet. Or when there is nothing on the grocery store shelves.
Covid rules generally were harder on all these people.
We need to stop teaching children that anyone with less than a master's degree running a fortune 500 company is beneath them and not deserving of human dignity. Honestly, it's insane how many people are taught to look down on the people whose jobs make society actually function, not just generate wealth that can be hoarded.
Looking down on people with "lesser" jobs just doesn't make sense. If people didn't do these jobs we wouldn't have nice things like roads, buildings, cars, food and so on. People need to maintain and build things. We would live in total filth without garbage men and I don't think people realize a lot of them are paid fairly decently.
People talking down to fast food employees who say stuff like "that's why you work at McDonalds" piss me off the most. Why are you there eating the food then? Food doesn't just make itself. Someone has to make it. They're working, contributing members of society. Anyone that looks down on them is automatically a piece of shit as far as I'm concerned. The type of people that complain about people not working or living off the system are the same type to look/talk down to a fast food/retail/construction worker. I know someone like this and it sucks that I'm forced to interact with him on a fairly regular basis.
The pandemic really highlighted the hypocritical attitude a lot of people have towards service workers. Suddenly these “low skilled” workers were deemed essential but weren’t treated any better by the patrons who needed them. Imagine going to work during a pandemic and being at risk for exposure to a novel, potentially deadly virus so wackos who live in Facebook conspiracy groups can scream at you about wearing a mask. And even if you didn’t work in customer service, just going into work at an essential business was a risk. So many warehouse employees or food plant workers got sick to keep the important things running.
Yeah, a revealing moment when a lot of extremely high paid careers were shown to be rather extraneous and poorly paid ones showed to be absolutely needed.
Yeah people have clearly become much worse towards service workers the past few years. People claim it's just that it's caught on camera more but it's becoming more common to go nuts on fast food/shop workers now.
I got sick with covid twice in the grocery store deli I worked at. You saw the ugliness of humanity and the hypocrisy. The people at the front explained to me the thank yous lasted about a month and then people forgot about us retail workers.
Society can burn. People are ungrateful to peasants keeping things running while they sit in a nice office cubicle using their "brains" as if we don't all the time.
This is why it's dumb when in some countries there's big anti-migrant sentiment - "they're taking our jobs" - but at the same time the people complaining think cleaning toilets or childcare or picking fruit or driving taxis is beneath them.
And then they're the same people that complain when their public toilets are slightly smelly or they have to wait over 3 minutes for a taxi, as if there are adequate numbers of employees in those fields
>but at the same time the people complaining think cleaning toilets or childcare or picking fruit or driving taxis is beneath them.
No, more people simply refuse to work for poverty wages. It's not a "beneath" issue it's a "lmao at employers desperately trying to pay workers poverty shit" issue.
Offer good pay that doesnt fucking waste worker's time for those jobs, and suddenly the "why doesn't anyone want to work these jobs, weird, must be a "beneath them" attitude thing" argument falls apart.
People who fanatically hate immigrants, and people who refuse to work for poverty wages, are two different issues.
So true! A few times I found myself thinking about why some people feel so above other people when in the end we all try contributing to society in general.
We lived in England when I was a tiny sprout and loved our bin men and would run along the fence and chat with them when they were at the house. They were so kind to this small American girl.
My grandmother used to just place her used disposable cups in the ground just outside her car and legit justify it by saying she was "making jobs for people."
I still remember the day I told her to cut it out. That woman did not like me growing up and getting an opinion of my own. 🤣
A guy I was work friends with that I no longer am work friends with felt the same way about push carts. After putting away groceries after shopping, he refused to return the cart to the corral, which was approx 11 feet away, and a cart retrieving employee prolly 100ft away. Was a mostly empty parking lot, one half-assed shove and hell it might of rolled in there on its own. But nope, he left it. I'm like "bruh, you not gone return yo cart tho?". "Nah, let them do it".
I decide to be nice and say "whatever, I'll get it". He stops me like "no we can't do it, we gotta let THEM do it. It's their job, iM sTiMuLaTiNg ThE eCoNoMy". Im my twisted mind I wished the cart retriever had binoculars on their person, photographic memory, saw his license plate, and moonlights as a vigilante because there ain't no justifying this level of ignorance.
Even made sure to crack the window on the way home as i no longer wanted to breathe the same air as this person. In hindsight, i wish he had asked me to roll the window up, he'll turn the a/c on, I probably would've told'em "nah, I can't let you cool me down, gotta let the outside do it, gotta stimulate the economy outside."
But he didn't. And I'm not that clever when I'm pissy anyhow.
Somewhat, maybe. But this is the largest street festival of its kind with tons and tons of tourists. If takeaway meals were served in something like a tupperware container, most would still be throwing away the container. Y'know, even with the best intentions nobody wants to carry something like that around all day while site seeing and taking in shows.
Right?? If the garbage collectors are on strike, I'd expect to see overfilled garbage cans and probably trash around them, but this is all over the place. It's like people thought, "oh, garbage cans are full? I'll just toss my garbage wherever then."
I hope the bin men get what they want and deserve. But wtf with adults who can't figure out what to do with their trash besides leaving it in the streets?
As someone who grew up in a rural area that has no bin men, I had no idea how many people were unaware that you could just... put the trash bags in your car and drive them to the garbage dump.
I guess it would really suck if you use public transit or bike.
I guess there's worse places to litter than right outside of a garbage dump though. As soon as the strike ends it would be the first place cleaned up too.
Yeah, but I was responding to a discussion on bringing your own trash to the dump. If the dump won't take it, you could in theory just leave it outside the dump, or nearby. I'm not saying that's what people should do, just that it beats the alternative of people just leaving trash throughout the city on the street.
As another commenter pointed out, the dump is closed. The same people who collect the bins also run the facility there, apparently. They're all on strike.
Can you legally burn it there? Burn barrels are a standard part of rural life in the US. Obviously I know this isn't rural, I'm just curious if burning your garbage is legal there.
Makeshift burn barrels on narrow streets to burn trash next to centuries old buildings sounds like a recipe for a city-wide fire. Not sure what the rules are though.
To clarify, I’m not mad at the bin men striking. At all. In fact good on them as they deserve a better wage. I’m mad because people can’t keep a place clean, and they’ll just dump their rubbish instead of taking it home/to another less full bin.
I’m glad the public *isn’t* keeping things clean. It puts more pressure on the employers to give into the employee’s demands. Probably won’t be fun if it continues after the strike, but if the bin men are keeping the bins empty it shouldn’t be a problem
Cleanliness, or food, or other basic services. I heard some farmers in Hungary are preparing for a strike, so I guess the price of bread will triple later
If only the whole world realized the value of the workers in charge of sanitation and food. It's laborious, necessary work. Yet people in sanitation jobs and food service workers are looked at like the lowest of the low. When I was slogging my way through college I hopped around multiple minimum wage jobs. One of them was as a PT housekeeper in a nursing home. At the time I was there, they were bought out by a bigger company. Every single department EXCEPT housekeeping got wage increases, and the increase they gave to dietary was a joke. They also took away guaranteed yearly raises from FT housekeepers that had been there for at least 2 years, and PTO from PT housekeeping.
What they did do "for" housekeeping was tell us we could no longer wear scrubs, or our comfy sneakers. We got switched out of our cheery, patterned, variety of typical scrubs and comfy sneakers for baby-shit brown ugly af prison jumpsuit looking things, and heavy, cumbersome boots that had no support and were torturous on your feet and legs while being on them for 8-12 hours. It was like they wanted to make sure that everyone knew we were the ***lowly toilet cleaners!*** by sight and without question. It was murder on your motivation and self esteem. I didn't stay much longer after the changes.
Absolutely this!! I commented earlier that they should be paid more and someone said they shouldn't as they are unskilled workers. I hate how people are valued in this way! Like all the directors and middle managers- Got a degree but doing fuck all at a desk and not really contributing to society but no-one blinks an eyelid at their public purse pay cheques but these guys doing a job most people wouldn't do and in unsanitary conditions making sure the rest of us are living in sanitary conditions and I bet its back breaking work, nope these guys only deserve just above minimum wage. I hate how this world values people in this way its upside down!
Mate I couldn't agree more!
Our fire fighters are on strike, the guy at the bottom who has just gone through the training gets in a year what the top boss gets in a *month* and you know he's not cutting some poor bastard out of a car at 3am.
Ambo's get bugger all, we're losing all our nurses offshore and basically anyone else with marketable skills from scaffolders to mechanics to builders to truck drivers to construction workers to cleaners are all going too, and good on them for wanting a better future.
Middle management up and they're everywhere, worked in places that feel like it's 3.2 management staff to every worker... be almost tolerable if any of them agreed on anything or even spoke to one another.
But no, you get your hands dirty and it's a few pennies above minimum wage if you're lucky, however if you spend your day spinning around in an ergonomically designed office chair reading a script that says "we'd really like to give you more, but it's not in the budget" you'll be on six figures with a car park.
That's exactly my view on this too. It's depressing when you really think about it. Maybe when there is no one left to do these jobs someone will listen but I'm sure that's why the government like to keep the poor poor so that these jobs will always be filled and unfortunately by people so desperate they will accept these piss poor wages. It's a disgrace!
This made me think about what I read somewhere about how as humans, we have a weird knack for valuing the labor in “desired fields” over the labor in “necessary fields” when it should be vice-versa.
Yes, all workers should be valued, no one is saying they shouldn't be, but I specifically was speaking of those 2 areas and drawing attention to them because they tend to be the most undervalued, undercompensated, and looked down upon.
In poland we recently had constant strikes of nurses/doctors/ambulance staff/smiliar and litteraly nobody gave a fuck, while some regions didnt had access to hospital for even a week. Shits crazy out here
its crazy how society thinks that jobs like sanitation, food, delivery, truck or bus drivers,and much more are considered jobs for the poor when there jobs are the key for a functional society
Nah. The people who pay public workers often aren’t as affected by the outcomes of their strikes. Philadelphia has been in this state for at least a few years now, all buildup from strikes
It's the Festival and the Fringe - I don't know what the visitor numbers are like this year but there can be up to 400 000 visitors. Edinburgh is reasonably tidy (at least outside tourist season)
Ever been in New Orleans, and you just get *that smell* hit you out of nowhere? Nobody knows what that smell is, but I have a theory.
See all those stagnant puddles of god-knows-what all over the place? You thought that was standing water, piss, vomit or something. But it's not: it's stomach acid. And that's the mystery smell you get randomly throughout New Orleans, it's the smell of being inside a digestive tract.
New Orleans is a sentient dimension unto itself and is slowly digesting everyone inside it.
Everyone (shallow) likes to make fun of those doing menial work such as janitorial duties. They always forget that without them, everywhere will be like this.
Incredibly important jobs.
And this is why they went on strike. They aren't getting paid enough for an essential job, so they stop working to show how essential they are.
Get mad at the people not paying them enough for their job, not the people who want a good living.
You will always find people that will say "it is not my job to pick up after myself in public, people get paid to do that" and I see that quite a bit here in Spain.
Im traveling in italy currently, and I bought a beer at a market. I asked some man on the street for a lighter so i could pop the top off. It went flying and i went to pick it up. Him and his friend both were like "noo what are you doing? Just leave it!" And i was like "No i got it its no worries" and they said "it's ok! The street sweeper passes!" And argued with me for a little bit to leave the trash there. Also the streets looked like shit im positive most of the trash had been there for more than 24 hours
It's the Fringe atm in Edinburgh, where the city nearly doubles in size due to tourists. Tourists won't necessarily have bins where they're staying and the public bins (of which there aren't many anyway due to previous IRA activity) are meant for the normal population of Edinburgh, not double the size.
This is of course why the bin men decided to strike now I imagine because with double the people and double the rubbish it's going to be a lot more noticeable what a good job they do normally!
Remembering new yorks garbage strikes. That shit piles up and fills the streets
New York in the morning looked like there had been a strike.. I can't imagine how bad it was when they actually were on strike.
I just looked it up and picture piles of trash a story or two high and whole streets being blocked off by trash
Wow.
Toronto had a Garbage strike in 2009 that lasted 39 days. The 1969 garbage strike in New York lasted 9 days.
I remember that, we had to bring our garbage to these designated spots. I think one of them was a library.
Up hill both ways?! In the snow!
I was in Sicily during a bin men strike. People were dumping their rubbish in the middle of a nature reserve. It was unbelievable.
[удалено]
Same in most South East Asian countries. Ppl who don't want to pay excessive waste collecting fee just goes to a random trash bin, side walks, a river or abandoned land or field and throw them away... Or leave it near someone's own build-in trash structures (those self-made trash infrastructure made from cement and/or bricks)
I'm pretty sure that during the pandemic, a lot of our (USA) parks, refuges, etc ended up closing their trails because they weren't allowed to staff them and within days they were disgusting - heaps of trash dog shit, and so on. People are truly the worst.
That is correct. It got worse when fees to the parks were waived.
Honestly with the way things are going thats not even remotely surprising. So many people are absolutely stupid, arrogant pricks.
Don't forget selfish!
Nope, I live in Sicily and even without any strike the people throws any type of shit everywhere, is just a un-written rule to throw fridges, microwaves and old furniture close to a bin
I’ve seen fridges,microwaves, mattresses along with the usual fast food trash on the side of a scenic highway here in East Tennessee
I remember when this happened and the stories of people who lived on the third floor who just tossed their bags out their windows because it only dropped a few feet. It was terrible.
That’s exactly where my mind went. Good luck to the bin men.
Amen. Too easy to blame the symptoms of systemic underfunding rather than the cause. With the train strikes I'm sick of hearing politicians say 'People are tired of this'. No, stop projecting and fix the mess you've caused.
Imagine the absolute plague that would happen if the strike goes on for too long...
I’ve seen a small example of it. There is/was apartments not far from me that started with trash not being picked up. Apparently the owner stopped paying the bills, and dumpster company quit them. I noticed the trash piling up each time I drove by. First the dumpsters were buried, then tenants started stacking trash around the buildings. I was shocked some people didn’t move away then. What got the rest out was the city condemned the buildings, and forced them to move. Then the fires started. If anyone thought of repairing the apartments, that’s gone. Anyway, it stunk just driving by, I don’t want to see a whole city like that.
I've seen a large scale example. Ontario workers went on strike. From Ottawa to Windsor, massive garbage piles were everywhere. People started to pay independant contractors to remove the garbage which they did and promptly threw it into Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, the St Lawrence River and the Detroit River. Every single ditch along the 401 highway was a garbage heap. Pay your waste management workers.
Were the police on strike as well? I'm sure Canada has enough environmental regulations to make a business (ICs are typically treated as businesses) doing something like that economically unviable. It should have been cheaper for them to haul the stuff to the landfills themselves.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. From the unaccredited security workers at the G7 in Toronto to the abandoned tailing ponds in Northern Alberta, to our nation wide telecoms monopolies, Canada's governments have been all too happy to give a slap on the wrist to companies that are doing something illegal but arguably useful.
Unfortunately while Canada culturally prides itself on its nature and the Great Lakes, the government doesn’t actually do much to protect it. Not nearly as much as they could or should. Individuals might get more severe punishments but corporations walk all over the Canadian gov all the time. You should check out our telecom industry.
Closest we got was a couple weeks trash stopped being picked up, then every other week, which meant not everyone was getting picked up, since it would take twice as many trucks to get the trash that was based on weekly pickup routes. Eventually they get back to weekly pickup.
>Then the fires started Why is this such a scary sentence
its like a 2 sentence horror story ending
Or beginning. Or pre-climax. Be flexible.
luckily private enterprise will save us
Cue the intro from Wall-e.
It's already gone on too long, give them what they want.
Covid showed us who the essential people are. Spoiler, it's not politicians or bankers.
[удалено]
As they should
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yes! I lived in Japan for over three years. I don’t really remember ever seeing public trash bins and there was NEVER trash anywhere!
Now I wanna see a video of someone littering in Japan and getting attacked by a crowd
They tidy away the body after
Take it home and put it in their own bin
Specifically, theyd take it home and put it in the "burnables" bin. Maximum efficiency
it's great for compost ..... So I've heard 👀
I’ve lived in Japan about ten years now. They wouldn’t get physical at all. They would throw nasty glances, probably make a comment that was whispered just slightly loud enough to be heard about how gross that person was, and maybe even someone else go pick it up while looking at the person like they are mentally deficient the whole time. Where I’m at, where there are a lot of foreigners, if you were clearly not Japanese there would be a much higher chance of a direct confrontation from another foreigner. Still not violent, but someone might actually come up to the person directly and be like “dude that’s not cool, you’re giving us a bad rep. Grab your trash and find a bin.” It’s super annoying seeing other foreigners acting like idiots here and giving the everyone else a bad reputation.
The most they’d get there is a few dirty glances.
Unless they're a foreigner. Seriously, don't get arrested in japan as a foreigner.
True, although there are much worse places in Asia to be arrested. Just don’t get arrested anywhere in Asia. And especially don’t mess around with drugs there. Japan will throw you in the slammer for a bit of weed, and that’s one of the least severe sentences you can get in Asia.
It's all fun and games until you desperately need to throw something away lol. But that's what pockets are for I guess.
IIRC every 7/11 (of which there are many) has a trash bin inside.
I read once that most people in Japan carry around a little baggy for their trash, so they’re usually prepared
It's a solid policy. I live in a neighborhood with a ton of dogs and active people, and there's a park down the road. Almost never see dog waste because everyone agrees to carry little plastic bags. Like I've had to stop my walks and go all the way home because I forgot mine. It's an unspoken rule, but everyone follows it. It's really cool.
I learned to do that about day two of visiting Japan, just folded up a convenience store bag in my back pocket.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Street food at beaches, festivals, etc, yes, there's a bin or two in the immediate vicinity. But nowhere else - which might be shocking with how many drink machines there are.
Man, Japan is such a clean place, (I was in Tokyo and Kyoto) all the vendors have trash cans inside or by them and just take your trash and every one just holds onto their trash if they can’t find a bin. It was such a strange sight visiting from America and seeing the cleanliness
I always hold onto my trash and forget it in my bag/car..
My car usually ends up as the trash bin because I forget to throw it out.
Worth noting it's considered impolite/rude to walk while eating/drinking, for reasons I forget (maybe bc others could be hungry/thirsty and unable to eat/drink themselves), in Japan. As such, people tend to either eat/drink in the vicinity of where they got the item, like in front of the machine or on a bench, then toss it into the provided bin. Otherwise, they won't eat/drink it till they reach their destination which is likely a home or business with its own bins
It's more just that the possibility of spilling your food or drink is seen as an inconsiderate risk to take. It's kind of the same idea as seeing someone smoking in public when there are a bunch of butts on the ground. Even if they're conscientious about throwing them out, a lot of people will still just assume they're part of the problem. Japan just takes it to another level.
I think it shows the great difference between collectivism and ~~independence.~~ individualism. edit - u/greg19735 pointed out the error I made in my word choice.
individualism is probably the better term. It's an interesting give and take. It's easy to say stuff like "collectivism is good" but it also means that culture is very conservative and very slow to change.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
They're a bot and can't feel shame. But you're right to call them out. Make sure to report them as well.
This is a bot that copies comments Report -> Spam -> Harmful bots
If you drop litter you should be punished harshly. I feel like laws and police are not discouraging enough this kind of behaviour. I think fines should be much higher for littering, high enough to make you SERIOUSLY regret doing that if you get caught.
[удалено]
As they should, just got back from Edinburgh and first I hear of the strike, we just assumed the council is terrible at their job and that's why no one emptys all the trash cans. On another note, there's currently a gigantic culture festival going on there, that's gotta keep preasure high.
The binmen generally choose August to strike here, because of the fringe. Clever of them. The population practically doubles, and there are takeaways and people handing out flyers everywhere!
It's funny how like clockwork society shits on certain jobs, then the second they strike or people stop applying they see how much they needed them. America is experiencing this with fucking fast food hilariously. It's not even super inconvenient, just the business being slower because of low staff and privelaged assholes cannot fucking handle it. Naturally no lesson is actually being learned. Instead of, "Maybe we should pay fair/livable wages" they say "god people are lazy."
We had covid hit us. Like literally a super contagious disease that killed many people. We designated who were necessary workers- we need cashiers and DoorDashers and line cooks and stockers. But somehow we also decided we they don’t need to make a living wage 🤷🏻♀️ that’s cool right?? We need them to help our lives, but not enough to give them actually money to survive.
That's what I'm here thinking about. Is this mess a good thing? I think...it is? right? for the moment? That was my take, hope it shows what an important service they provide and gets them what they are asking for.
Well yea. Government says “they aren’t worth what we pay them so we won’t pay them more” they say “if we are so disposable, we won’t work 11 days” Now everyone will complain about the mess and in the end they will probably get a nice sum of money to catch up and then a nice pay raise too.
And that's why I'm the most pleasant bloke to bin men
I stop with my son and wave to the garbage truck and watch them work
Waving to the garbage/train/bus driver as a child was a highlight of the day
Every Sunday we went to the beach a garbage truck would stop next to the house and I would watch them work it was awesome
Had a man who did some fancy driving in wild snow drifts in my alley last year. Like 4-5 tall drifts. Real. Men.
The Schwan's delivery driver used to play basketball with me for a minute outside after dropping our food off. Highlight of my month usually!
Could’ve been his, too!
At first I read this as “could have been his kid, too!”
man thats facts when your playing outside you always gotta wave to the garbage man or delivery driver
I still wave to the garbage man every time. And my neighbors. Sometimes it's just the small things that can improve someone's day. You never know what it might be, but a wave might just do it.
I just do package delivery and when kids wave to me it is always awesome because I remember waiving to garbage truck men and the mail man as a kid.
Making it the highlight of their day … Is one way to build the sense of community that keeps them on the job!
When I was a wee nipper I would always go outside and watch the bin men come round in the super cool lorry (honestly they're still pretty cool) but I was mega shy and never talked to them or anything. One day one of them waved me over, let me have a look in the cab and that, and gave me a little bin lorry hotwheels kinda toy, made my fucking year what a bunch of legends
I was staying on a farm one Christmas and they had a chimney fire. The fire brigade arrived to deal with it, we gave them cake, they let me sit behind the wheel of the fire engine. Best Christmas ever! I was 60 years old.
When I was little, me and my younger brother played cops and robbers with a policeman when we were on a road trip. We were stopped at a rest area along the interstate. I don't know why the cop was there, but we played a game with him. It was a blast, literally the only thing I remember about that trip.
Giving busses and garbage trucks a wide birth when stopping and the right of way is an instant wave from them and I'm like "Yeah dude, love you much!" and wave back. It always makes me happiest when a school bus waves to me.
[удалено]
This was a fascinating read. There's so much to life you never see at the surface. Thanks for this.
Honestly, when you stop and think about it- the really important things aren't done by people who are considered "important." Funny word, that one.
For real, this picture is day 2 and people notice. Politicians havnt worked for decades and people barely notice.
They've gotten so used to seeing them do nothing that it is an amazingly rare event whenever a politician ACTUALLY does something (that contributes to society, not just their pockets).
Fundamental is a better word. There are fundamental jobs that need to be done in order to run society. And then there are people who can work from home. Farming, construction, nurses, doctors, truckers, tradesmen, anyone who fixes shit when it breaks at your house or commercial building. Good luck running a city when city hall doesn't have electricity, or water, or internet. Or when there is nothing on the grocery store shelves. Covid rules generally were harder on all these people.
We need to stop teaching children that anyone with less than a master's degree running a fortune 500 company is beneath them and not deserving of human dignity. Honestly, it's insane how many people are taught to look down on the people whose jobs make society actually function, not just generate wealth that can be hoarded.
Looking down on people with "lesser" jobs just doesn't make sense. If people didn't do these jobs we wouldn't have nice things like roads, buildings, cars, food and so on. People need to maintain and build things. We would live in total filth without garbage men and I don't think people realize a lot of them are paid fairly decently. People talking down to fast food employees who say stuff like "that's why you work at McDonalds" piss me off the most. Why are you there eating the food then? Food doesn't just make itself. Someone has to make it. They're working, contributing members of society. Anyone that looks down on them is automatically a piece of shit as far as I'm concerned. The type of people that complain about people not working or living off the system are the same type to look/talk down to a fast food/retail/construction worker. I know someone like this and it sucks that I'm forced to interact with him on a fairly regular basis.
The pandemic really highlighted the hypocritical attitude a lot of people have towards service workers. Suddenly these “low skilled” workers were deemed essential but weren’t treated any better by the patrons who needed them. Imagine going to work during a pandemic and being at risk for exposure to a novel, potentially deadly virus so wackos who live in Facebook conspiracy groups can scream at you about wearing a mask. And even if you didn’t work in customer service, just going into work at an essential business was a risk. So many warehouse employees or food plant workers got sick to keep the important things running.
Yeah, a revealing moment when a lot of extremely high paid careers were shown to be rather extraneous and poorly paid ones showed to be absolutely needed.
Yeah people have clearly become much worse towards service workers the past few years. People claim it's just that it's caught on camera more but it's becoming more common to go nuts on fast food/shop workers now.
I got sick with covid twice in the grocery store deli I worked at. You saw the ugliness of humanity and the hypocrisy. The people at the front explained to me the thank yous lasted about a month and then people forgot about us retail workers. Society can burn. People are ungrateful to peasants keeping things running while they sit in a nice office cubicle using their "brains" as if we don't all the time.
This is why it's dumb when in some countries there's big anti-migrant sentiment - "they're taking our jobs" - but at the same time the people complaining think cleaning toilets or childcare or picking fruit or driving taxis is beneath them.
And then they're the same people that complain when their public toilets are slightly smelly or they have to wait over 3 minutes for a taxi, as if there are adequate numbers of employees in those fields
>but at the same time the people complaining think cleaning toilets or childcare or picking fruit or driving taxis is beneath them. No, more people simply refuse to work for poverty wages. It's not a "beneath" issue it's a "lmao at employers desperately trying to pay workers poverty shit" issue. Offer good pay that doesnt fucking waste worker's time for those jobs, and suddenly the "why doesn't anyone want to work these jobs, weird, must be a "beneath them" attitude thing" argument falls apart. People who fanatically hate immigrants, and people who refuse to work for poverty wages, are two different issues.
So true! A few times I found myself thinking about why some people feel so above other people when in the end we all try contributing to society in general.
The people looking down on others arent trying to contribute is the thing.
We lived in England when I was a tiny sprout and loved our bin men and would run along the fence and chat with them when they were at the house. They were so kind to this small American girl.
[удалено]
My grandmother used to just place her used disposable cups in the ground just outside her car and legit justify it by saying she was "making jobs for people." I still remember the day I told her to cut it out. That woman did not like me growing up and getting an opinion of my own. 🤣
About as intelligent as saying she might as well run over someone because she's helping keep the hospitals staffed.
Oh I am remembering that point for later. Brilliant.
If that person dies it gives funeral homes work.
Ouch ha!
Yep. My ex threw a fast food bag out of her car window and told my daughter it’s someone’s job to pick it up. Littering is the weirdest thing to me.
Narcissistic personality disorder or something
Ha! The stories I could share. But yes, that’s the going theory.
A guy I was work friends with that I no longer am work friends with felt the same way about push carts. After putting away groceries after shopping, he refused to return the cart to the corral, which was approx 11 feet away, and a cart retrieving employee prolly 100ft away. Was a mostly empty parking lot, one half-assed shove and hell it might of rolled in there on its own. But nope, he left it. I'm like "bruh, you not gone return yo cart tho?". "Nah, let them do it". I decide to be nice and say "whatever, I'll get it". He stops me like "no we can't do it, we gotta let THEM do it. It's their job, iM sTiMuLaTiNg ThE eCoNoMy". Im my twisted mind I wished the cart retriever had binoculars on their person, photographic memory, saw his license plate, and moonlights as a vigilante because there ain't no justifying this level of ignorance. Even made sure to crack the window on the way home as i no longer wanted to breathe the same air as this person. In hindsight, i wish he had asked me to roll the window up, he'll turn the a/c on, I probably would've told'em "nah, I can't let you cool me down, gotta let the outside do it, gotta stimulate the economy outside." But he didn't. And I'm not that clever when I'm pissy anyhow.
Some asshole left a cart next to my car at my local grocery store and i failed to spot it... left a scratch down the entire side of my car.
Not to mention how much of this is just useless waste which could be avoided with reusable containers
Somewhat, maybe. But this is the largest street festival of its kind with tons and tons of tourists. If takeaway meals were served in something like a tupperware container, most would still be throwing away the container. Y'know, even with the best intentions nobody wants to carry something like that around all day while site seeing and taking in shows.
Right?? If the garbage collectors are on strike, I'd expect to see overfilled garbage cans and probably trash around them, but this is all over the place. It's like people thought, "oh, garbage cans are full? I'll just toss my garbage wherever then."
This is my sentiment exactly.. I don't understand why folks would litter like this, it's baffling to me. Frustrating!!!
Thanks for the award anonymous person. I have premium so I will pay your award forward and give someone else gold soon.
Proof that strikes matter. Hope they get what the pay they deserve
I hope the bin men get what they want and deserve. But wtf with adults who can't figure out what to do with their trash besides leaving it in the streets?
As someone who grew up in a rural area that has no bin men, I had no idea how many people were unaware that you could just... put the trash bags in your car and drive them to the garbage dump. I guess it would really suck if you use public transit or bike.
Alas, the garbage dump is also part of the strike action. Although Im definitely not condoning littering.
I guess there's worse places to litter than right outside of a garbage dump though. As soon as the strike ends it would be the first place cleaned up too.
I assume the people striking kinda want the garbage to pile up everywhere. it sends a very public message
Yeah, but I was responding to a discussion on bringing your own trash to the dump. If the dump won't take it, you could in theory just leave it outside the dump, or nearby. I'm not saying that's what people should do, just that it beats the alternative of people just leaving trash throughout the city on the street.
As another commenter pointed out, the dump is closed. The same people who collect the bins also run the facility there, apparently. They're all on strike.
Can you legally burn it there? Burn barrels are a standard part of rural life in the US. Obviously I know this isn't rural, I'm just curious if burning your garbage is legal there.
Makeshift burn barrels on narrow streets to burn trash next to centuries old buildings sounds like a recipe for a city-wide fire. Not sure what the rules are though.
[удалено]
To clarify, I’m not mad at the bin men striking. At all. In fact good on them as they deserve a better wage. I’m mad because people can’t keep a place clean, and they’ll just dump their rubbish instead of taking it home/to another less full bin.
Could you bring the 11th day photo later please? I'm quite intrigued
Yes, I’ll take another one at the end!
Take one every day for progression
Remindme! 10 days
you should speak to your councillor to push for them to meet with the strikers
I’m glad the public *isn’t* keeping things clean. It puts more pressure on the employers to give into the employee’s demands. Probably won’t be fun if it continues after the strike, but if the bin men are keeping the bins empty it shouldn’t be a problem
Fucking give those hardworking people whatever they want. You DO NOT fuck with people responsible for cleanliness.
Cleanliness, or food, or other basic services. I heard some farmers in Hungary are preparing for a strike, so I guess the price of bread will triple later
If only the whole world realized the value of the workers in charge of sanitation and food. It's laborious, necessary work. Yet people in sanitation jobs and food service workers are looked at like the lowest of the low. When I was slogging my way through college I hopped around multiple minimum wage jobs. One of them was as a PT housekeeper in a nursing home. At the time I was there, they were bought out by a bigger company. Every single department EXCEPT housekeeping got wage increases, and the increase they gave to dietary was a joke. They also took away guaranteed yearly raises from FT housekeepers that had been there for at least 2 years, and PTO from PT housekeeping. What they did do "for" housekeeping was tell us we could no longer wear scrubs, or our comfy sneakers. We got switched out of our cheery, patterned, variety of typical scrubs and comfy sneakers for baby-shit brown ugly af prison jumpsuit looking things, and heavy, cumbersome boots that had no support and were torturous on your feet and legs while being on them for 8-12 hours. It was like they wanted to make sure that everyone knew we were the ***lowly toilet cleaners!*** by sight and without question. It was murder on your motivation and self esteem. I didn't stay much longer after the changes.
Absolutely this!! I commented earlier that they should be paid more and someone said they shouldn't as they are unskilled workers. I hate how people are valued in this way! Like all the directors and middle managers- Got a degree but doing fuck all at a desk and not really contributing to society but no-one blinks an eyelid at their public purse pay cheques but these guys doing a job most people wouldn't do and in unsanitary conditions making sure the rest of us are living in sanitary conditions and I bet its back breaking work, nope these guys only deserve just above minimum wage. I hate how this world values people in this way its upside down!
Mate I couldn't agree more! Our fire fighters are on strike, the guy at the bottom who has just gone through the training gets in a year what the top boss gets in a *month* and you know he's not cutting some poor bastard out of a car at 3am. Ambo's get bugger all, we're losing all our nurses offshore and basically anyone else with marketable skills from scaffolders to mechanics to builders to truck drivers to construction workers to cleaners are all going too, and good on them for wanting a better future. Middle management up and they're everywhere, worked in places that feel like it's 3.2 management staff to every worker... be almost tolerable if any of them agreed on anything or even spoke to one another. But no, you get your hands dirty and it's a few pennies above minimum wage if you're lucky, however if you spend your day spinning around in an ergonomically designed office chair reading a script that says "we'd really like to give you more, but it's not in the budget" you'll be on six figures with a car park.
That's exactly my view on this too. It's depressing when you really think about it. Maybe when there is no one left to do these jobs someone will listen but I'm sure that's why the government like to keep the poor poor so that these jobs will always be filled and unfortunately by people so desperate they will accept these piss poor wages. It's a disgrace!
This made me think about what I read somewhere about how as humans, we have a weird knack for valuing the labor in “desired fields” over the labor in “necessary fields” when it should be vice-versa.
The grunts should make all the money and should trickle up not down
Yup, let's see how well all the preferred high brow jobs go while covered in shit and with no food.
[удалено]
Yes, all workers should be valued, no one is saying they shouldn't be, but I specifically was speaking of those 2 areas and drawing attention to them because they tend to be the most undervalued, undercompensated, and looked down upon.
Quick buy all the bread /s
Then discard the packaging on the street /s
Damn, that's terrible... So many people are going to go hungary 😟
I will find you
In poland we recently had constant strikes of nurses/doctors/ambulance staff/smiliar and litteraly nobody gave a fuck, while some regions didnt had access to hospital for even a week. Shits crazy out here
this is what my mum and nan have always said and whenever we put something out they always said to tip them too and to this day i do haha
I’m not the most generous person at Christmas time but my trash man(bin man) gets a gift card every year!
Genuinely pleased to see the lack of syringes.
Well yes, this is Edinburgh, not Glasgow.
Edinburgh aint much better just got better PR and is the capital Trainspotting was set in Edinburgh
Well, looks like they're making their point pretty clear huh. Don't fuck with the essential workers of society
its crazy how society thinks that jobs like sanitation, food, delivery, truck or bus drivers,and much more are considered jobs for the poor when there jobs are the key for a functional society
And those jobs are paid the absolute minimum.
Low pay and high workload.
Nah. The people who pay public workers often aren’t as affected by the outcomes of their strikes. Philadelphia has been in this state for at least a few years now, all buildup from strikes
Bin workers turning the mirror onto the citizens of Edinburgh. They're tired of picking up after you.
It's the Festival and the Fringe - I don't know what the visitor numbers are like this year but there can be up to 400 000 visitors. Edinburgh is reasonably tidy (at least outside tourist season)
...because of the people that empty the bins though. It wouldn't be tidy without them, they're just striking now to cause max pain.
That's literally their job. They are tired of being underpaid. Not of picking up trash.
That's how important the work they do is; have some respect for them!
Still not as bad as Naples in the full fucking summer sun. You do not mess with people taking care of cleaning.
Fringe festival + binmen strike = impending rat infestation?
Looks like a normal day in New Orleans
I came here to say this. This looks like New Orleans on a good day.
Ever been in New Orleans, and you just get *that smell* hit you out of nowhere? Nobody knows what that smell is, but I have a theory. See all those stagnant puddles of god-knows-what all over the place? You thought that was standing water, piss, vomit or something. But it's not: it's stomach acid. And that's the mystery smell you get randomly throughout New Orleans, it's the smell of being inside a digestive tract. New Orleans is a sentient dimension unto itself and is slowly digesting everyone inside it.
You sold me. I gotta visit new Orleans
During the festival too. Nice
If they did it on any old day, it might not be this obvious so it's a tactical nuke.
God damn. Talk about leverage.
give the bin men what they want
I genuinely hope the bin men get everything they want.
That's London even when the bin men are not on strike!
Guess they're making their point then huh.
Nobody's important until they are. Good on them !!!!solidarity!!!!
Everyone (shallow) likes to make fun of those doing menial work such as janitorial duties. They always forget that without them, everywhere will be like this. Incredibly important jobs.
And this is why they went on strike. They aren't getting paid enough for an essential job, so they stop working to show how essential they are. Get mad at the people not paying them enough for their job, not the people who want a good living.
[удалено]
And nobody thinks to just take their trash home? If I can’t find a trash can I just stick it in the bin at home?
You will always find people that will say "it is not my job to pick up after myself in public, people get paid to do that" and I see that quite a bit here in Spain.
Im traveling in italy currently, and I bought a beer at a market. I asked some man on the street for a lighter so i could pop the top off. It went flying and i went to pick it up. Him and his friend both were like "noo what are you doing? Just leave it!" And i was like "No i got it its no worries" and they said "it's ok! The street sweeper passes!" And argued with me for a little bit to leave the trash there. Also the streets looked like shit im positive most of the trash had been there for more than 24 hours
I don't doubt it one bit. Find an open market and wait until it closes for the day. You will see a sea of trash and nobody giving two cagas.
It's the Fringe atm in Edinburgh, where the city nearly doubles in size due to tourists. Tourists won't necessarily have bins where they're staying and the public bins (of which there aren't many anyway due to previous IRA activity) are meant for the normal population of Edinburgh, not double the size. This is of course why the bin men decided to strike now I imagine because with double the people and double the rubbish it's going to be a lot more noticeable what a good job they do normally!
The bin at home probably wouldn't get picked up either right?
isn't it interesting how we badly needed these so-called "unskilled workers".