For over a decade, Kazuhide Inoue has quietly contributed to safeguarding the morals of adolescents in Fukuoka. The 73-year-old makes several visits each year to eight white “post boxes” located throughout the city in western Japan, where he unlocks and empties their contents. On a recent trip, he collected 16 books and 81 DVDs in just one day. However, these boxes are not for rental shop customers; they serve as discreet disposal points for individuals—primarily men—who wish to get rid of unwanted pornographic material that could potentially be accessed by children if kept at home.
“Before the white boxes were installed, this material was scattered across the streets,” Inoue explained to a news agency. In Japan, street bins are relatively scarce, as people typically take their trash home. The number of public rubbish bins significantly decreased after the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
Today, the overwhelming availability of digital pornography on smartphones is making these boxes less relevant. The number of shiroposuto, identifiable by their color and messages promoting children’s welfare, has sharply declined over the past decade. While there is no official count, these white boxes—later accompanied by less noticeable steel containers—are quickly becoming a cultural relic. Last year, officials in Nagasaki temporarily closed several white post boxes after the number of items collected dropped from 5,000-6,000 annually in the early 2000s to around 2,000 today.
Shiroposuto, or white post boxes, first emerged in Amagasaki in 1963, initiated by local mothers’ groups aiming to combat the negative influence of the postwar surge in pornographic literature. Tokyo’s first porn drop box appeared in 1966, and within three years, the capital had approximately 500, as the discreet disposal of such materials spread beyond western Japan.
“The initiative to install these boxes was spearheaded by mothers who wanted to protect their children from harmful content, including pornographic books and magazines,” said Yuko Obi, an associate professor of sociology at Tokyo Keizai University, who has studied the history of shiroposuto. Most boxes are situated near railway stations, where men often dispose of unwanted materials under the cover of darkness to avoid being seen by acquaintances.
“At night, when the streets are less busy, men of all ages come to discard their items,” a taxi driver in Fukuoka noted. Regular collections of books, magazines, and DVDs in certain areas indicate that these boxes still serve a purpose. The city of Fukui even installed two boxes as recently as 2018, with some requiring emptying as often as every three months. The exact number of remaining post boxes is unclear, but it is believed that only one exists in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
