I don’t need research because I’ve been to Tokyo plenty of times and I saw in fact lots of trash in the ground.

And again you’re wrong, trash bins for recycling do exist in Europe because I use them all the time, and I also happen to have visited lots of European countries and I didn’t see that much more trash in the ground than Japan. It’s true for cigar butts (its mind boggling in the Mediterranean countries) , but not trash. You probably had one “bad” experience and are using that evidence anecdotally. You are comparing Japan, a country, to Europe, a continent, it’s not fair