When in doubt, sort it out.

• Position: Sorting garbage - Brief Article

When residents of Yokohama recently received a 27-page booklet on how to sort their trash into 10 categories, they found detailed instructions on 518 items. Socks? If only one, it goes in the burnables bin; a pair goes into the used-cloth bin, but only if the socks "are not torn and the left and right sock match." Lipstick goes with the burnables, but empty lipstick tubes go in the small-metals or plastics bin. Land-scarce Japan incinerates about 80 percent of its garbage; the push to recycle aims to reduce that percentage. Yokohama, a city of 3.5...