Every PET bottle bears a triangle of arrows with the message: "Yes! to recycling. No! to littering." But it doesn't show where the bottles go.
The truth is, only 61 percent of used PET bottles manufactured in Japan, or 267,000 tons, were collected for recycling in fiscal 2003. The rest was either burned or buried along with other garbage, according to the Council for PET Bottle Recycling.
But the collection rate is climbing, thanks to a 1995 law mandating the recycling of containers and packaging by food and beverage makers and municipal governments. The council said Japan earns top marks for recycling compared with the U.S., which collected only 19.6 percent, and Europe, which collected 30 percent.