OSAKA -- Osaka's annual Tenjin Matsuri festival, held in late July every year, draws tens of thousands of visitors and is considered one of the country's largest and most popular summer events. But this year, city officials are worried that once the party is over, the streets will look like a rock star's hotel room the morning after a concert.
That's because for the past decade, the city has relied on volunteers rather than city sanitation workers to pick up empty cups, bottles, paper plates and other items that can be recycled.
When the city first began the program in 1993, more than 200 people, mostly college students, volunteered to help clean up the streets. But in recent years, the number of those willing to spend two days disposing of the thousands of tons of garbage generated by the event has fallen dramatically.