Last week on June 6 we joined Chiyoda Ward Cleanup Day. The night before had been rainy-season rain, but that morning there was a brief dry spell. Twice a year, spring (June) and autumn (November), under the Living Environment Ordinance, Palaceside Building also spends about an hour from 8:00 a.m. on the cleanup.
Fifty-six people from the building and its tenants and offices took part. Last autumn about 110 gathered; rain the night before seems to have cut numbers this year. We started in front of the west entrance on the Takebashi crossing side, with work gloves, tongs, 45-liter bags, brooms and dustpans.
Around the building, under the urban expressway loop, along Uchibori-dori sidewalks and plantings, each at their own pace, we made roughly one circuit and collected butts, paper, plastic bags, wood chips, cans and more. Sixteen 45-liter bags, a little under 40 kilograms in all: eight combustible, two incombustible, one glass, one cans, one PET bottles, three waste plastic.
The photos show cigarette butts dumped thick in one place — the plantings under the expressway. Whether people smoked there or dumped later, cigarette manners do not improve. By the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, smoking-place limits will likely tighten further in the city. A recent TV news item had a woman student from France saying she was “surprised how the streets smell of tobacco.” Smoke and smell already constrain time and place for smokers; at least manners, please.