# Sorting trash in Japan: reading the marks on every package > Most towns in Japan sort household waste into 11 or more categories, and every town has its own rules. How to read the recycling marks on packaging, and how to teach Glimpse your own town's chart once. Published: 2026-10-12 Category: Everyday help Canonical: https://glimpseai.jp/blog/sorting-trash-in-japan Nobody warns you that the hardest reading test in Japan is the trash. Signs and menus get all the attention. Then you are standing in your kitchen at night holding a yogurt cup, a lid and a paper sleeve, trying to work out which of three bags each one goes in before collection in the morning. This is not only a problem for people who just arrived. Rules belong to each municipality, so moving from one city to the next can mean learning the whole system again. And there are more people learning it than ever. Japan had 4,125,395 foreign residents at the end of 2025, the first time the number passed four million, according to the [Immigration Services Agency](https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/publications/press/13_00062.html). ## Why it is genuinely hard The Ministry of the Environment publishes a yearly survey of how every municipality handles household waste. In the [fiscal 2024 results](https://www.env.go.jp/recycle/waste_tech/ippan/r6/data/disposal.pdf), 1,242 of 1,719 municipalities sorted waste into 11 or more categories. That is about 7 in 10. Thirty seven of them used 26 categories or more. (The survey counts Tokyo's 23 wards as one.) So when someone tells you how trash works in Japan, they are really telling you how it works where they live. The neighbor's advice is good. The friend in the next city over is often wrong for your street. ## The marks on the package Here is the part that helps everywhere. Under the Act on the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources, makers have to print a material mark on certain packaging, so people can separate it without guessing. According to [the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry](https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/recycle/main/data/mark/index.html), the mark is required on: - **Plastic packaging**, marked プラ. - **Paper packaging**, marked 紙, except aluminum free drink cartons and cardboard. - **PET bottles** for drinks, alcohol and certain seasonings. - **Steel cans and aluminum cans** for drinks and alcohol. The marks are small, they are often printed in one color on a busy label, and they hide in places like the bottom of a tray or the inside of a flap. One item can carry more than one. A drink bottle often shows PET for the bottle and プラ for the cap and the label, which is a hint that they go in different places. ## The catch A mark tells you what the thing is made of. It does not tell you which bag it goes in on your street, or which day. One town may collect プラ packaging with other plastics, another may want it on its own day, and somewhere else it may go out with burnable trash. For that part you need the chart your municipality hands out. ## Using Glimpse for both halves **Read the marks.** Hold the package up, or turn it over, and ask what recycling marks are on this. It reads them out loud, including the tiny ones on the bottom that you would normally need to bring close to your face. Ask which part each mark refers to if there is more than one. **Teach it your town once.** Glimpse does not reliably know your town's rules on its own, and you should not trust it to guess. Take out the sorting chart or calendar your city gave you, or open it on your city's website, and have Glimpse read it to you. Then save what matters with remember this. Remember, in my town プラ packaging goes out on Wednesday. Remember, cans and bottles go in the same bag here. It keeps those notes after you close the app. **Then just ask.** Next time you are holding the yogurt cup, ask which bag this goes in and which day. It can put the mark it sees together with the rules you saved. Reading the package and knowing your local rules are two different jobs, and this way you only do the second one once. > ### Save the exceptions first > > The everyday items you learn in a week. What catches people out are the rare ones: spray cans, batteries, anything big enough to need a collection appointment. Read those lines on your city's chart first and save them, because those are the ones you will have forgotten by the time you need them. ## Where to be careful It can misread a small mark, especially on shiny film or in dim kitchen light. If an answer surprises you, look at the mark yourself or ask again from a different angle. It also only knows what you taught it. If your city changes its rules, the note you saved last year is out of date. The city's own guide always wins. Glimpse is there to read it faster and keep it close, and for more on its limits there is a whole page on [what it cannot do](https://glimpseai.jp/blog/what-ai-glasses-cannot-do.html). ## Start with tonight's bag You do not need to sort your whole kitchen into a system. Next time you take the trash out, ask about the three things you are least sure of. [Glimpse is free](https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/glimpse-vision-ai/id6764219526?l=en-US) on the iPhone with daily minutes included, and if you are new to the country, the [guide to reading signs and menus](https://glimpseai.jp/blog/travel-japan-translation) covers the rest of the reading you will be doing. ## Common questions ### Does Glimpse know the trash rules for my city? Not reliably, and it should not guess. Show it the sorting chart from your city, have it read the parts you need, and save them with remember this. ### What do the プラ and 紙 marks mean? プラ marks plastic packaging and 紙 marks paper packaging. They show the material, so you can separate it. Which day and which bag depend on your municipality. ### Can it read the tiny marks on the bottom of a package? Usually, in decent light. Shiny film and dim kitchens make it harder. If an answer seems wrong, tilt the package and ask again.