“Smart” garbage bins are seen after being installed on a sidewalk in the heavily tourist-populated Shijo-dori area of Kyoto’s Higashiyama Ward on Feb. 14, 2025. (Mainichi/Yoko Minami)
KYOTO — At the Gion shopping district and elsewhere in this west Japan city, solar-powered “smart” garbage boxes were installed on Feb. 14, capable of automatically compressing trash to reduce the number of pick-ups needed.
The updated bins also feature closing disposal panels to prevent garbage scattering. The Kyoto Municipal Government had previously installed around 300 garbage bins to stop littering at popular tourist spots and elsewhere. Since March 2023, the city has been converting them to smart bins, using donated trash cans from waste management company Kinoshita Kansei Inc., based in the Shiga Prefecture city of Otsu.
Around the Gion district in the city’s Higashiyama Ward, 14 bins have been installed to replace all the existing ones, at seven locations such as by the Minamiza Theatre to the west and Yasaka Shrine to the east.
Koichi Minami, the 42-year-old head of Aer Leasing Corp., an aviation finance firm based in the city of Fukaya, Saitama Prefecture, which donated eight of the bins, said, “I heard about ‘overtourism’ on TV and offered to help. I love the streetscapes of Kyoto and am glad to be of service.”
(Japanese original by Yoko Minami, Kyoto Bureau)
AloJapan.com