TOKYO -- It doesn't smell like a dump. If it did, there are a quarter-million neighbors to complain about Toshima Incineration Plant, which devours 300 tons of garbage a day, turning it into electricity, hot water and recyclable sand.

Japan burns more garbage in the heart of its big cities than any developed country. The Toshima plant is one of 21 factory-sized incinerators that operate around the clock amid Tokyo's 12 million densely packed residents.

This does not create a stink, literally or politically. "There is no smoke or odor coming from the incinerators," said Hideki Kidohshi, a garbage analyst at the Japan Research Institute.

While the United States buries most garbage in landfills, Japan burns about three-quarters of its trash in the world's largest armada of incinerators.

Japan's urban incinerators are not smelly, smoky or deadly, and they're often not ugly. Many are architecturally significant and some are social hot spots.

Architect Yoshio Taniguchi, designer of the expanded Museum of Modern Art in New York, also designed Hiroshima's incineration plant, an eye-catching tourist attraction that the architect has called "my museum of garbage."

Japan is small, mountainous and densely populated. Landfills near Tokyo and elsewhere are filling up fast, despite the fact that the Japanese throw out half as much garbage per day as Americans do.

Sorting trash is a serious civic responsibility here. In the eastern Japanese town of Kamikatsu, residents are required to compost all food waste and sort other garbage into 34 bins for recycling.

In Tokyo, the rules are less onerous, but far from lax. Bottles and cans must be rinsed before being placed in containers for curbside pickup. Neighbors notice -- and often complain -- if someone ignores the rules.