Garbage and Toilets

You have to take all your garbage with you. This includes when you check out of a mountain hotel: there are no garbage facilities on Mount Fuji.

I bought food and/or used the toilet at a number of the mountain hotels up to the peak, and none of them had garbage facilities.

Now, there was one exception to this: the place I ate dinner the first night let me recycle the six Pocari Sweat bottles that I had with me. However, that was an exception, not the rule. Also, chances are I shouldn’t even have asked. In retrospect, I feel bad about this—at the time I didn’t realize what the norms were, and the request was probably really awkward for them.

Thankfully I had a plastic bag with me from 7-11 for my garbage from my food, and for my plastic bottles. So, when I finished one of the bottles, I would just collapse it, put the cap back on it to keep it collapsed, and put it in my garbage bag.)

Now, while you can’t throw out any garbage on Mount Fuji, starting at fifth station there is one thing you can, and must, throw into a garbage bin:

Toilet paper.

I’m actually 100% serious. At every toilet from 5th station to the summit, there is some form of notice requesting that you throw used paper in the bin, not the toilet. (This is not the case at the portable toilet at Umagaeshi. At the time, I didn’t really appreciate being able to drop toilet paper into the toilet.)

The first time I saw a sign like that couldn’t really believe it. It was worded a bit ambiguously, and I just assumed it meant used sanitary napkins for women, not toilet paper.

However, further up the mountain, at the second toilet I stopped at, it was spelled out pretty clearly, with cartoon pictures:

If you think that a small garbage box full of used toilet paper would smell bad:

Yes.

So, if you ever have a bad day at work and complain about your shitty job, remember this:

All those bags from all those bins need to be carried down the mountain.

It is at least one human being’s job to take the bag of shit from that bin, and all the other bags of shit from the other bins, and get them down Mount Fuji somehow.

So, there is definitely more than one person on this planet with a shittier job than you!

One final note: each of these toilets costs 200 yen to use. You put your coins in a box outside the bathroom building, which, in all cases, is separate from the actual mountain hotel in question. This is why I recommended bringing at least 1000 yen in 100 yen coins. You will always want to have at least 200 yen in coin on you at all times. (If you need more coins, just buy a drink or some food.)

Normally I would complain about paying 200 yen to go to the bathroom, but when you think about what is involved here, this is a small price to pay. The bathroom attendants earn their money.