On his eponymous YouTube channel 古舘伊知郎チャンネル, TV personality and freelance announcer 古舘伊知郎 Ichiro Furutachi invites various well-known guests to talk about everything from the latest news, current events, social issues, sports and entertainment.

In November 2022, he invited 滝沢秀一 Shūichi Takizawa of the comedy duo マシンガンズ "Machine Guns" as a guest. Takizawa is not your conventional comedian. For the past 11 years, he has been supporting his career in making people laugh by making the world a cleaner place - in other words, he has been working as a trash collector. However, he has used his experience in the industry to give back to society, sharing helpful tips on trash disposal and recycling on social media, writing books, and joining the talk circuit to share his insights.

Thanks in part to Furutachi's excellent interviewing skills, Takizawa shares interesting episodes and experiences and explains why he has continued to work as a trash collector for over a decade.

Takizawa makes many interesting points in the video. To begin with, based on his personal experience collecting trash in both low- to middle- and upper-class residential neighborhoods, wealthy people throw out less trash.

This may sound odd at first. After all, some people may wonder, wouldn't the wealthy worry less about throwing things away since they have the means to replace them?

Takizawa's theory is that "wealthy people only buy what they like, so they have fewer things to throw away." The popularity of thrift shops and discount clothing stores has ironically encouraged more wasteful behavior in the middle class, where people have been buying many cheap plastic goods. In addition, since fashion trends change all the time, people who buy cheap but trendy clothes end up throwing them away when the next trend comes along.

When it comes down to it, Takizawa says, "people may tell lies but their trash doesn't lie. It honestly reflects people" by showing how they choose to live their lives.

You can watch the second part of the interview, as well as many other interesting talks with a wide variety of guests on the Ichiro Furutatchi channel.


By - grape Japan editorial staff.