Blog by Patricia Houlihan

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Living Green and more on Japan

The reduce, reuse and THEN recycle thing….when I was in Japan the foreigners used to be the true proponents of the reuse concept.  I was there during the “bubble” economy.  It seemed then that everyone had too much money-before the big crash there.  At that time, it was amazing what people would throw away.  It seemed like everything had a 2 year shelf life-TVs, microwaves, stereos, coffee makers, you name it.  As a result, upon arriving in Japan , most foreigners would quickly learn about “gomi” day (garbage day!).  Many could furnish their entire (very small!) apartments with gomi-and end up with some pretty high end stuff!