Julia Ross, Straits Times 5 Dec 07;
WHEN I planned for my year in Taiwan two summers ago, trash was the last thing on my mind. The more obvious challenges of moving abroad - finding an apartment, navigating the bus system, learning Mandarin - preoccupied me.
But strange things happen when you cross cultures. Unexpected frustrations vex you and ingrained habits suddenly come up for negotiation. So it was for me and waste disposal.
On this island of 23 million people, trash matters.
My Taipei landlady was the first to make that point, when she instructed me on how to dispose of household waste.
First, buy city-approved trash bags at the corner 7-Eleven. Then, meet the garbage truck five nights a week at the mouth of a nearby alley. Finally, heave the bags onto the truck yourself.
You'll recognise the truck, she said, because it plays music - a tinny version of the Beethoven classic Fur Elise, I soon figured out.
Understanding the mandatory recycling system was more troublesome.
In Taiwan, recycling trucks follow trash collectors but accept only certain items on certain nights. According to the strictly enforced schedule, plastic bottles must be separated from plastic wrappings and bags; flat recyclables, such as styrofoam trays and cardboard dumpling boxes, are collected only on Mondays and Fridays.
Show up with bundled newspapers on the wrong night and you'll get an earful from the sanitation worker.
Waiting for the garbage truck is one of Taiwan's liveliest communal rites. Many evenings I watched food vendors from the night markets, buckets of eggshells in hand, chat up convenience store clerks alongside Filipino nannies who traded kitchen appliances as if they were at a Sunday morning swop meet. Freelance recyclers showed up to collect cardboard and newspapers, which they would then sell back to the city. An alderman with a whistle kept traffic at bay.
These kerbside jaunts formed my initiation into Taiwan's broader waste-disposal network, made up of municipal employees and regular citizens all doing their part.
They shamed me into compliance after years as a half-hearted recycler back home. I even came to feel a peculiar solidarity with the 'ladies with tongs', the city transit and university sanitation workers who spend their days sifting through garbage bins in subway stations and on university campuses in search of aluminium cans.
Then you have nosy landlords who are sometimes tasked with sorting their tenants' trash.
One American friend, upon surrendering several bags of refuse soon after moving into a Taipei apartment, was dumbfounded when his landlady scolded him for eating too many candy bars and not enough fruit.
Humiliated, he bought oranges the next day, hoping she would notice the peels he planned to leave on top of the pile.
Taiwanese friends tell me that 10 years ago, Taipei's sidewalks were awash with rotting garbage. You'd never know it today, thanks to the introduction of a per-bag trash-collection fee, a charge for plastic bags at supermarkets and the rigorous recycling policy now in effect. These changes created an infinitely cleaner city. Even more impressive, they fuelled a sense of civic responsibility.
I've been home in the United States for three months now, and consumption looks as robust as ever, with the same limited recycling opportunities.
Reducing your personal 'carbon footprint' is a hip way to fight global warming, but what about the trash generated by last night's takeout?
Before Taiwan, I was a lazy environmentalist, dutifully recycling wine bottles and newspapers and opting for paper over plastic, but never going the extra mile if it wasn't convenient. It's no longer so easy to make excuses.
Living in a place where I was expected to use what I bought and recycle every last yogurt cup and juice box left me with a new appreciation for what clean streets mean in a civil society, and the realisation that I'm responsible for everything I consume.
That's as good a Chinese lesson as any.
WASHINGTON POST
Ms Ross, a writer, was a US Fulbright scholar in Taiwan.
