In a shocking display of Japanese efficiency that would make a British council worker choke on their lukewarm tea, Tokyo has declared war on the scourge of dropped crisp packets and discarded vape pens. The city, which already boasts streets cleaner than a surgeon's conscience, is now introducing on-the-spot fines for litterbugs in a desperate attempt to keep its tourism industry from drowning in a sea of its own shiny wrappers. And naturally, UK cities are watching with the sort of predatory interest usually reserved for a seagull eyeing a half-eaten pasty.
Let me paint you a picture. Tokyo, a metropolis where even the pigeons wear bowties and the graffiti is probably a haiku, has decided that the time has come to crack down on the barbarians at the gate: tourists who treat the public realm like a personal bin. From April, anyone caught dropping a can, a cigarette butt, or a dignified silence will be clapped in irons (metaphorically) and fined 1,000 yen (about a fiver, or the price of a single gin and tonic in a London hotel). The Japanese, you see, have this quaint notion that public spaces are not, in fact, a landfill site for the weak-willed.
Meanwhile, back in Blighty, our own dear leaders are watching this development with the slack-jawed awe of a man who has just discovered that you can, in fact, boil water. Our streets, let's be honest, are a festoon of discarded McDonald's wrappers, abandoned umbrellas, and the occasional shopping trolley that has achieved sentience and decided to live a life of crime. So it's no surprise that our city councils are now muttering about 'following suit' or, as they put it, 'borrowing from the Japanese playbook' which, knowing our local government, they will proceed to lose, accidentally set on fire, and then replace with a consultation document on the feasibility of licking stamps.
But here's the kicker. The British approach to littering has always been, shall we say, haphazard. We have fines, yes, but they are enforced with the same vigour as the ban on talking in libraries: spotty. A Japanese street cleaner, I imagine, regards their job with the solemnity of a samurai. A British street cleaner, bless them, is more like a weary philosopher who has seen the truth and found it to be a discarded kebab wrapper. We could learn from Japan, sure, but we could also learn from a badger that learned to tap dance. The point is, we won't.
There is, however, a deeper absurdity here. The very tourists who are now being fined are the ones we spent billions bribing to visit. We have erected an entire industry around the proposition that coming here to take a selfie with a guard is a life-affirming experience. And now we are shocked, shocked, to discover that some of them are slobs. It's like building a hotel on a volcano and then complaining about the heat. Tokyo's solution is elegant in its simplicity: shame and a small financial penalty. Our solution, if history is any guide, will be a 500-page report, a target for 'positive litter outcomes', and a nine-month trial in a single bus shelter in Slough.
So as UK cities sharpen their pencils and try to remember how to write a bylaw, let us raise a glass (recyclable, of course) to the Japanese. They have shown us that it is possible to fine your way to civic virtue. Here, we will probably end up fining the wrong people, issuing penalty notices to little old ladies for dropping a petal, while the true litter kings, the ones who empty their car ashtrays into a hedge, will be given a stern letter and a voucher for a free pasty. It is, after all, the British way.
