Clean and lean Japan

During my visit to Japan on a family holiday, | was astounded by two features. The first was the pristine cleanliness across the country.

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As we travelled through big cities and rural areas, public spaces such as parks, markets and train stations and along the seashores, river fronts, ponds and even roadside canals, nowhere did we find any litter; not even a bottle, can, or piece of paper. Surprisingly, when we wanted to dispose of some coffee cups, we just could not locate a trash can. We had no option other than to shove the paper cups in our backpacks.