If I were asked to guess why restrooms in Japan are good and getting better, I would suggest a number of possible factors: public pressure on municipalities and businesses to create a positive experience for both residents and tourists; very little crime; large-scale homelessness being limited to a few parts of Tokyo, Osaka, Kawasaki, Yokohama, and one or two other large cities; and a widespread attitude that a lack of clean, available restrooms is abnormal and needs to be fixed.
A boom in tourism since COVID may be creating a challenge, though. The only two times recently when I have had trouble finding a public restroom were when I happened to go to areas crowded again with tourists: Asakusa in Tokyo and Namba in Osaka. I saw shops in both places with signs up in Japanese, English, and Chinese saying they didn’t have restrooms, presumably to keep tourists from coming in just to use the facilities. I can’t remember ever seeing that in non-touristy areas.
From wikipedia: "[Director Wim] Wenders was invited to Tokyo by Koji Yanai to observe the Tokyo Toilet Project, a project in which Japanese public toilets were redesigned in 17 locations throughout Shibuya with the help of 16 creators invited from around the world. Wenders was invited to take a look at the uniqueness of each of these facilities. At first, the producers envisioned Wenders would make a short film or series of short films on the facilities, but he opted for a feature film"
Come to Australia! Dunnys everywhere mate.
If you're really penny pinching, the ground is often littered with receipts.
I'm not sure how it's hard to find one.
Combini have been increasingly restricting access to the garbage can.
They've also been disappearing from train stations, where they used to be common.
It's interestingly a similar dynamic to washrooms in other countries: if only a few places have them, they get harder for those places to maintain as they get used so heavily. So nobody wants to maintain them anymore. On the other hand, when they're ubiquitous, it's easy to offer as a free service, because it will only be lightly used.
Because of the lack of garbage cans, I also reduce my consumption. That popsicle looks delicious but I don't want to walk around holding a popsicle stick for an hour, no thanks.
Konbini are nowhere close to EVERYWHERE. Just because you went to Tokyo city centre doesn't mean japan is same everywhere
Most of the vending machines I saw had both types next to them, and I never had an issue with accessing a trash can in a konbini.
I suppose we just had very different experiences.
Never go to Netherlands or Germany. Not a single (free) public toilet seems to exist there and the few they do have will make you pay at least 1 EUR per pee.
Switzerland and France has (free) public toilets AFAIK.
Portugal has free public toilets in almost every grocery store and public library.
I think the antithesis of Japan would be NYC, where even as paying customer many locations don't have accessible facilities.
If you think the reason your city/subway "smells like piss" isn't because of lack of restrooms, then you're wrong councilperson.
If your city can’t accommodate basic human needs, it doesn’t deserve my tourist $.