We’ve been recycling for decades and the debate is still on the agenda. There are studies that conclude that we don’t fully understand how recycling works, that we continue to make mistakes in the products that go into each container, and that things are even worse if we talk about plastic. The world recycles less than 10% of the plastic it throws away, and campaigns have even had to be implemented to reward good recycling.

There are problems with recycling in many areas, from plastics to food waste thrown into the streets or landfills. South Korea also had a problem with this, but they now recycle 97% of their food waste. Like? With a payment system for recycling and fines if not done well.

South Korea. Recent studies show that approximately 30% of South Korean waste is food waste, but more than 90% is effectively separated and collected. Jae-Cheol Jang, a professor at Gyeongsang National University’s Graduate School of Agriculture, co-authored the study, who told the BBC that “about 4.56 million tonnes of food waste are processed in South Korea every year.” 4.44 million tonnes are recycled for other uses, meaning 97.5% of residues are recycled.

Purpose: avoiding landfills. These residues are used to produce biogas, animal feed and fertilizer, but this was not always the case. It is estimated that in 1996 the country recycled only 2.6% of its food waste. The 1980s saw the rise of industrialization, urbanization, and gentrification in South Korea, creating the problem of what to do with waste in a country where the average density is more than 530 per square kilometer.

Garbage dumps were created near major cities, which mobilized the population due to odor and waste, and a campaign was launched to put an end to the rubbish storage problem. This led to the creation of a law in 2005 banning food scraps from being thrown into landfills. The government went a step further in 2013 by introducing a payment system to pay for food waste by weight.

Banchan

Pay for recycling. And no, they don’t give you money for recycling as a way to incentivize the action, but you have to pay every time you throw away the debris. This is a huge challenge for a country where culturally so much food can be wasted by throwing it in landfills or buckets. And I say it’s cultural because there is a banchan tradition.

If you’ve ever been to a Korean restaurant, you know that there’s a main dish surrounding it, with lots of dishes like vegetables, meat, or different sauces to complement that main dish, but there are penalties if you waste it, as we’ll see later.

three options. When it comes to recycling and effectively treating this waste, citizens have three options that vary by region, district, or even different apartment blocks in the same city. Yuna Ku is a BBC correspondent and has this to say about what the system is like:

• authorized bags: They are about 3-liter yellow bags that cost about 300 won, or 20 cents, and when filled with waste, they are taken out to the street for municipal service collection. There are also 20 litres, which cost just over a euro.
• automatic system: These are radio frequency identification machines located in building blocks that allow food waste to be weighed. The user brings a steel container with their waste, places it in the machine, and it automatically reads the code on the person’s residence card. This card contains the identity information of the house and also a credit system. When it weighs the waste, it throws it in and gets paid. Yuna states that she usually throws away around 4.5 euros worth of waste per month.
• stickers: This is for restaurants. These are prepaid stickers that restaurants buy and place on containers so the collection service knows they’ve already paid. This is where the real difficulty arises from the aforementioned banchan.

One of these containers with radio frequency

fines. So what happens if you don’t comply? Yuna confirms that the population generally complies (there is data on changes in recycling habits in the country), but if someone does not dispose of food waste competently, they have to pay the price. There are security cameras in the buildings that detect neighbors, and depending on the frequency of the violation, fines can be around 63 euros.

Restaurants also have cameras, but authorities may become suspicious if they see not enough waste being disposed of. In this case, fines can exceed 10,000,000 won (approximately 6,800 euros). Yuna says Koreans tend to follow the rules because of a strong moral standard, and the recycling pay is not high compared to the average salary.

challenges. Now this leaves two difficulties. In South Korea, 49% of waste is used to feed livestock, and if these residues are not handled properly, the health of animals that are later fed into the population can be compromised. This is something that has already had consequences, such as the swine fever outbreak in 2019 that put many of the country’s farms at risk and led to the Government temporarily banning rations made from food scraps.

On the other hand, in the rest of the world such a system will be more or less accepted depending on the country. Tracing the South Korean system would not be optimal, and Rosa Rolle, an expert on food loss and waste at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, told the BBC that these habits would be suitable for raising awareness among the public. However, he thinks that in Latin American countries, for example, emphasis should be placed on maximizing food use, minimizing waste or donating leftovers.

In any case, according to Rolle, if such measures are to be implemented, “They must be based on solid data in order to understand where, why and in what amount loss and waste occur. Solutions must be based on scientific evidence and be appropriate to the need.” Context There is no one size fits all situation.

Pictures | Revi, Foerster, Bobby Palm

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