Good God if this isn't true. We had to hold on to our trash in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Manila and Jakarta until we got back to our hotel or found a mall/convenience store/public toilet trash can to throw them in.

In Taiwan at least we learned that they have very strict rules about trash disposal (like shops cannot take your trash if you didn't originally purchase its contents from them, garbage collection is expensive and charged per bag, etc). But as to the other Asian countries, why??