NAGOYA - Urine-filled plastic bottles are being illegally dumped at highway parking and service areas across Japan, creating foul odors and raising safety concerns.
On a sunny day in June, about 45 staff members from Central Nippon Expressway Co. and the Gifu Trucking Association, clad in fluorescent orange vests and armed with tongs, cleaned the Byobuzan Parking Area in Mizunami, Gifu Prefecture, on the Chuo Expressway linking Tokyo and Nagoya.
Among the deli trays and coffee cans pulled from shrubbery between the expressway and the parking area, transparent garbage bags filled with 500-milliliter and 2-liter bottles of golden and brownish liquid stood out. In just an hour, they collected 35 bottles.
Cleaners call these the "golden PET bottles" for their telltale color, with one worker noting, "If it sits for days, it goes 'pssh' and sprays like soda."
Crack one open and the smell is immediate -- a pungent odor reminiscent of a neglected outdoor toilet.
Large trucks are often parked near the shrubbery where the bottles are found. An official of the highway operator, better known as Nexco Central, said truck drivers likely toss the bottles from their higher windows during breaks to save time.
Nexco Central said similar dumping has become rampant in Mie, Shiga and Aichi prefectures as well, through which the Meishin and Shin-Tomei expressways under its management run. It is working with various trucking associations on cleanups and distributing leaflets to promote better manners.
In addition to possibly running afoul of Japan's waste disposal legislation, the dumping of such bottles also poses a safety hazard -- should one roll onto the expressway, a collision could result.
The Aichi prefectural police were unequivocal: "Dumping objects on the road is illegal and extremely dangerous. Stop. Now."
