Japan’s Shibuya to fine litterbugs on the spot from June as visitor numbers surge

Aluminum cans, bottles, and other trash stashed next to a vending machine in Shibuya.

Photo: Shutterstock Tokyo’s Shibuya ward – home to the famous scramble crossing and one of the Japanese capital’s busiest shopping and nightlife districts – is abandoning its long-standing policy of asking people to take their rubbish home.

Instead, it is turning to on-the-spot fines as visitor numbers surge and litter piles up.

Under a new campaign branded “If you throw trash, you lose cash”, anyone caught dropping rubbish will be fined 2,000 yen (US$12.50), with enforcement starting on June 1 after a grace period.

The move marks a shift from a policy introduced around 2013, when the ward removed public bins because they were overwhelmed and encouraged people to dispose of waste responsibly themselves.

A decade on, officials say that approach has failed to keep streets clean amid a sharp rise in footfall, including inbound tourists, in one of Tokyo’s busiest commercial and entertainment districts.

Locals and foreign tourists alike crowd the streets to watch dancing and a drum performance during the Shibuya Bon Odori Festival in August 2025.

Photo: Jiji Press/AFP The revised Ordinance for Creating a Clean Shibuya Together is a “landmark initiative” that aims to address the “growing littering problem associated with the sharp increase in visitors, including inbound foreign tourists”, city officials say.

The scheme also requires any outlet selling food or beverages to install rubbish bins, with fines of up to 50,000 yen for non-compliance.

It will cover areas around Shibuya station, the tourist-friendly Harajuku district and nearby Ebisu.

The ward is also training patrols able to speak multiple languages, including English, Chinese and Korean, to enforce the rules, with officials saying the aim is to ensure enforcement is “easy to understand, fair and effective, regardless of nationality”.

It also reflects a broader rethink of the ward’s earlier decision to remove public rubbish bins. “We chose to remove waste bins for a number of reasons, including the phenomenon of ‘trash attracting more trash’, where the areas around the bins became overwhelmed with garbage,” said Yuichi Noda, of the city’s planning and management division. “There was also the increased importance of counterterrorism measures,” he told This Week in Asia.

Tokyo’s subway system was the target of an attack with sarin nerve gas by the apocalyptic cult Aum Shinrikyo in 1995.

There was also concer

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