my grampa pwns me by recycling styrofoam

this is my grampa.
he's not my real grampa, which is probably why i didn't inherit his tragically good looks, but look! we do share a love of plaid!

like most japanese grampas, ojiichan, which is what i call my grampa because i have no idea what his real name is, does not know much about planet green, eco-blogging, or even really what the internet is for that matter. so when i went to my grandma and grampa's mansion (this means apartment building in japanese - so odd!), i was blown away by the magnitude of eco-innovation that exists in their little household. in japan, it is not unheard of for thick booklets of more than 20 pages to be distributed showing people how to sort their trash, and community crusaders have been known to dumpster dive to investigate the whereabouts of improperly sorted garbage so that they can return it to the non-compliant owners.

since i usually pride myself on being the annoying eco-cop in any group, i almost swallowed my muscat flavored gum when i confidently tossed away a thin, plastic wrapper from some noodles (you know, the kind that comes on cup-a-noodle), only to be pwned by ojiichan who showed me the six bags he set out to sort trash. six! he told me to throw the wrapper into one bag and a twist tie that i was trying to throw out into another. a twist tie!

but here is the clincher - japanese people recycle styrofoam!



jepsra's mascot: his darn pants are part of his shell. he went as far as to recycle his shell! how can i possibly compete?

anyhow, i found this info on the japan expanded polystyrene recycling association or jepsra's website, and thought it was both interesting and envy-inducing.

the collection method:



note: epsy plazas are recycling bases for styrofoam. the "eps" stands for expanded polystyrene and the "y" is to make it sound cuter.

how the eps gets recycled:





these are the most current charts i could find about eps recycling in japan. if anyone has any newer information, please share!



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