Gomi Guide: the best Japanese trash sorting app there is
We make Gomi Guide, so yes, we are biased. But we genuinely believe it is the best trash sorting app in Japan, and we are happy to back that up. Here is the honest case.
It is actually free
Figuring out where your garbage goes should not cost you anything, and in Gomi Guide it does not. You open the app, point it at the thing, and get your answer. Identifying the item, giving you the right category, and showing the pickup day are all free. There is an optional Pro subscription that removes ads and adds a few extras, but you never hit a wall on the part that actually matters.
It does the whole job
Plenty of apps will hand you a category and leave you there. Gomi Guide goes all the way:
- Snap a photo or just type what the item is
- Get the category for your exact ward, not a vague national guess
- See when that category is collected near you
- Get walked through the phone call for oversized garbage (sodai gomi)
- Get the move-out rules for appliances that cannot go in the trash
And it works in eight languages, so the answer comes back in the one you actually read.
The information is genuinely useful
Japan's garbage rules are specific, and they change from ward to ward. We put the real details in: the prep steps, the fees, the timing, the categories nobody can ever remember. You get a usable answer instead of a label and three more questions. The guides on this blog are part of that too. The app is the quick answer in the moment, the blog is the deeper walkthrough when you want it.
We actually care about this thing
Gomi Guide is built by a small team that lives with this system every week. We answer our own email. We add new regions as fast as we can. When someone tells us a category looks wrong, we go fix it. It was not shipped once and forgotten.
About the copycats
Since Gomi Guide came out, a few cheaper apps have turned up doing a thinner version of the same idea. Honestly, it is a little flattering. But copying the concept is not the same as doing the work, ward by ward, and standing behind it. We are the one that does the whole thing and keeps making it better.
Do not take our word for it. It is free. Download it, throw your most confusing piece of trash at it, and judge for yourself.