Recycling, Food Waste and Trash Disposal

Recycling and reducing trash have always been topics that I am passionate about.  Thankfully, Korea is equally passionate.

I've recorded a series of videos to show how recycling and trash collection are done at our apartment.

The habit of separating your food waste, recyclables and trash is encouraged everywhere, especially noticeable at fast food restaurants.  Here are pics from Burger King.  They have separate bins for food waste, plastic lids and straws, cups, liquid waste, and then actual trash.  

In our elevators, we have posters helping to determine what constitutes food waste.  It says that Food Waste should not include Liquid Waste.  You should pour liquid waste down the sink (like soda, tea, coffee, etc.). Food Waste includes: leftovers, garden scraps, fruit skins/rinds (anything that can be eaten by livestock).

Forbidden garbage includes: wood, plywood, cans, baskets, umbrellas, light bulbs, bamboo sticks, batteries, hangers, ceramics, and books.  It warns that if you put trash that is forbidden into the chute, the whole apartment may be shut down due to clogging of pipelines and breakdown of collection facilities.

Away from the apartment, there are other trash and food waste receptacles that feed right into the vacuum chutes.  

This is a quote from the atlantic.com: "all of Songdo’s trash is sucked into underground pipes, and is automatically sorted and recycled, buried, or burned for fuel. These pipes connect all apartment buildings and offices; consequently, there are no street-corner trash cans or garbage trucks. Among the first of its kind in the world, the system currently requires just seven employees for the entire city."

This is a quote from readwrite.com: "Instead of unwieldy garbage cans and noisy trucks, a citywide, vacuum-powered system literally sucks garbage to the dump. Buildings are hooked up to the garbage grid, but there are also portals in a few places around town. The benefits: No trash in public, easier disposal, fewer trucks on the streets, and lower vehicle emissions."

underground vacuum hoses in the Third Zone Automated Waste Collection Plant

And lastly, if you have something large, like a piece of furniture, to dispose of, you purchase a white sticker and you put the item near the garbage chutes with the sticker on it.  We have noticed that once an item is placed outside with a white sticker on it, it becomes fair game for others to take it.  We picked up a bunk bed ladder and our friends got a couch from a coffee shop going out of business.