Yolanda Bolithons, a resident of Yokohama from Seattle, has five garbage cans at her house: one each for plastic, cardboard, PET bottles, metallic waste and combustible items.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='200' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='/images/photos2005/nn20051231f3a.jpg' WIDTH='200' HEIGHT='272'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Officials of Yokohama's Environmental Services Bureau put stickers on garbage bags to show they contain items that should be disposed of on a different collection day. </B></FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>Every time she throws away a PET bottle, she takes the plastic label off, puts the bottle in one can and the cap and label in another.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>It was hard at first to get used to separating garbage into so many categories.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'But I feel like I was OK after maybe six months,' said Bolithons, a mother of two. 'We have so much garbage, and I agree with recycling.'</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>To reduce waste and promote recycling, Yokohama expanded its trash separation categories in April to include plastic containers and packaging, paper, spray cans and old cloth.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>After the change, and with the help of residents, the city's garbage output from April to November fell by some 360,000 tons, or 33 percent, compared with the same period in fiscal 2001. Yokohama had originally set a goal to slash its waste by 30 percent from fiscal 2001 levels by fiscal 2010.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Yokohama's new system is one attempt by officials nationwide to promote recycling, but although local governments, consumers and businesses are all making efforts to do more, there is still room for improvement.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The Environment Ministry is trying to revise the Law for the Promotion of Sorted Collection and Recycling of Containers and Packages to push recycling further, but debate rages over who should do the work and who should bear the costs.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>In Yokohama, the new separation system not only helped transform more waste into reusable resources, it also increased citizens' awareness of the garbage issue, according to Masaki Fujihira, an official at the city's resources and waste recycling bureau.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>' –

stopped bringing unnecessary things home, for example by telling shop clerks not to wrap products," he said.

But not all municipalities have such stringent recycling policies and many cash-strapped local governments cannot afford to collect the bulky materials.

While collection for recycling glass bottles and cans by municipalities covered more than 97 percent of the nation's population in fiscal 2003, only 59.3 percent of the population had their plastic recycled; the figure for paper packaging was only 27 percent, according to the Environment Ministry.

To recycle plastic containers and wrapping, municipalities have to separate them from other materials, crush them and tie them into bundles, which makes it more costly than collecting other waste, said Masami Hamada, manager of Yokohama's resources and waste policy division.