Sorting garbage

I was having breakfast today and noticed a handy diagram on our milk carton of how to properly dispense of the carton after finishing the milk. As you can see in the diagram below, it's not all that simple:
Actually, throwing out any type of garbage in Japan is not that simple. It was one of the things I worried about most when I arrived in Japan. When I finished using something, I always wondered which type of garbage is was. As you can see from one of the recycling sheet below, there are many types of garbage and you must put your garbage with the correct group or else it will be rejected:
At home I have 7 types of containers for garbage. I am quite used now to finished a drink, and making sure I take off the plastic seal from the PET bottle so each can be thrown away into the correct groups. One thing I hate about buying foreign products now is that they are not designed to be separated easily. I'm starting to find myself buying products made in Japan more just because they are easier to throw away.

Since Ayako and I are moving, we are having to throw some large things away, which can be even more troublesome. This morning, we were getting ready to dismantle a mattress since the springs must be separated from the cloth. And the cloth can not be larger than 60 cm by 60 cm. Luckily, just as we were about to begin, we heard a van with a loud speaker coming down the road. The man in it was advertising that he took garbage from people, and so we asked him about the mattress. He accepted in its original form for a small fee.

Although it can be a bit of a pain, I've found that people in my area of Japan are quite good about throwing garbage away in the correct spot, and that I rarely see garbage on the road anywhere.