Japan sewers clean up their act with manhole art
TOKYO: Japan’s sewerage industry has found a way to clean up its dirty and smelly image: elaborately designed and colourful manhole covers with 12,000 local varieties nationwide -- including, of course, a Hello Kitty design.
Appealing to a Japanese love of detail and “kawaii” (“cute”), bespoke manhole covers adorn the streets of 1,700 towns, cities and villages across Japan and have spawned a collection craze among “manholers.”
The designs represent an instant guide to a place as they feature its history, folklore, or speciality goods — a castle design for an ancient town, a bay bridge for a port and Mt Fuji for a city at the foot of Japan’s iconic mountain.
As for Tama City, located in the western sprawl of greater Tokyo, locals are pinning their hopes on a more modern Japanese icon -- Hello Kitty -to attract tourists, alongside the town’s theme park showcasing the character from the Sanrio company.
“We’d be happy if people come and take some time for a stroll in our town while looking for the Hello Kitty manholes,” said Mikio Narashima, who heads the city’s sewage system division.
The history of decorating manhole covers in Japan dates back 40 years to a bid to improve the image of the sewerage system, according to GKP’S Yamada.
Cover designs must have the same friction level no matter which direction humans or cars come from so that people do not slip over them.
An extensive collection can be seen at Japan Society of Manhole Covers.