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Urban Design Observations: The Functional Volume vs. Actual Mass of Trash

We could learn from Japanese schoolchildren who drink milk

By Rain Noe - May 9, 2018

in Urbanism

At a Dunkin' Donuts in Gowanus.

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Having worked in restaurants for years, it always captures my attention that you can fit 100 new, folded napkins within a certain volume, but crumple them up and you can only fit 10 in the same space. Ditto with coffee cups.

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This garbage can isn't full; it's filled with paper bags, receipts, straw wrappers, empty un-nested coffee cups and lids, et cetera, and no one wants to push the garbage down.

When I lived in Japan, I worked at a junior high and got to witness the Japanese school lunch procedure. Lunch is served in the classroom by students, and students also do the cleanup.

Each student gets a box of milk. After finishing his, the boy in front of me removed the straw and compressed his box completely flat. I looked around to see the other students doing the same. All of the flattened juice boxes in the class of 34 then went into a small transparent garbage bag, taking up a minimum of space.

When I asked the teacher about it, he explained that it only takes the students a few seconds to do, and multiplied across the school, flattened milk boxes required less garbage bags and less trips to ferry said garbage bags.

I was impressed, and ever since then I compress my own garbage as best I can.

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Alex Netz

6 years ago

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there are trash cans that compact the trash, seen them at Atlanta's airport.

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Austin Liu

6 years ago

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Japan is the most conscientious society on earth. We can barely get people to put recyclables into the correct bin when the bins are right next to the trash cans. I wish we could get everyone to care here, but alas, it would be easier to develop a robot with AI powered machine vision to pick out the boxes and to flatten them than to get people to bother to do the right thing in the US.

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Mark Van

6 years ago

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Yes. It always frustrates me that there is insufficient joined up thinking around recycling, and things like shipping largely empty volume happens.

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