Bathboys湯 Recycling poster

The recycling process can feel complex and opaque, no matter where you live. To provide a little guidance, Ray Masaki of Bathboys湯, a small art imprint based in Tokyo, designed a customizable poster that details the rules of recycling and garbage collection in Tokyo. Depending on your ward, you can place the day-of-the-week stickers in the designated spots as a reminder for when to take out your waste.

The poster uses four typefaces by Morisawa. The Kanji describing the categories is set in Ryumin. The sans serif Latin type and the days-of-the-week stickers are set in Midashi Go MB31. The serif Latin type and the vertical Japanese type are set in UD Reimin, and the footnotes that detail how to recycle each item are set in Futo Go B101.

On his relationship with recycling and his motivation for making the poster, Masaki writes:

I find the process to be somewhere between annoying and overly complex to fascinating and meditative. There are so many careful steps and rules that need to be followed (like separating a PET bottle into 3 different types of plastics), so I wanted to make a print that I can refer to with customizable day-of-the-week stickers for your own ward with various recycling tips. I realize the irony of producing a niche product that may also eventually become waste, but it’s printed on recycled paper and maybe it’ll inspire more people to dispose of their waste properly.