Nara Park to install first trash cans in 40 years to combat littering by tourists

An increase in tourism has led to a new scheme to install more trash cans in Nara Park as part of efforts to reduce littering in areas populated by deer.

Tourism to Nara Prefecture has increased over the last year, with more than 10 million tourists visiting Nara Park and its surrounding areas alone.

While the park is bustling with the increase in foot traffic, Nara Park does not have many public trash cans which often results in tourists littering. Requests are made via various signs around the park for tourists to take their trash home with them, however these are sadly ignored by some visitors.

Littering around Nara Park results in deer accidentally eating trash and whilst local authorities try to handle this through daily cleaning and volunteer collection activities, they are trying to encourage tourists to consider the local environment and dispose of their trash safely.

Six new “SmaGo” trash cans were installed on the 10th of January at Nara Park Bus Terminal, in both indoor and outdoor locations, to help visitors to the area dispose of their trash in an environmentally friendly manner, marking the first time in 40 years that new trash cans were installed in the area by the local authorities.

Messages are featured on the exterior of each of the trash cans to raise awareness of the effects of littering on the deer in Nara Park:

The messages show statistics that state plastic garbage is found in the stomachs of 67% of deer that have died, and the maximum amount of plastic garbage found in one deer’s stomach has reached 4.3 kg.

To maximise the effectiveness of the scheme, each “SmaGo” trash can has the ability to automatically compress the garbage inside, enabling more to be stored than a regular trash can. They are also solar powered, which allows them to be environmentally friendly.

It’s hoped that by making trash disposal more convenient, as well as raising awareness of the issues faced by the very deer that tourists come to see, that littering around the park will be significantly reduced.

The newly installed trash cans will be monitored for a month to gain insight into their effectiveness. The local authority will then potentially roll out further installations across the wider Nara Park area to help protect the native deer population.