Garbage and Recycling System in South Korea and Japan

I was born in South Korea and I lived in Japan for 3 years and half. South Korea and Japan have good garbage and recycle systems, but both countries are little bit different. South Korea has strong rules about garbage and recycling, so Korean has to follow the rules for saving moneys. However, Japanese joins to recycling by themselves.

 South Korea........

First, in South Korea, garbage collections are not free.  We use certificated garbage bags of municipal government. We can’t use any bags. Municipal governments provide garbage bags to supermarkets or grocery stores, and the stores sell garbage bags to citizen. If we fill garbage in the bag, governments collect just their garbage bags. Garbage bag is expensive, so we have to reduce waste  and also have to sort recyclable materials for saving moneys. All rules require to someone who make waste garbage to pay about volume of garbage. If we buy a cup of coffee with paper cup at Starbucks, we pay some money for disposal paper cup, but no pay for mug. If we go to shopping, stores don’t provide free plastic bags. Therefore many people bring their own bags, or some people buy certificated garbage bags for shop-bought everythings, after then we can reuse the bags for waste garbage.

<City of Siheung Garbage bag for Home>

<Garbage Bag Price - City of Seoul Average>

5ℓ - 10cent    

10ℓ - 20 cent    

50ℓ - $1   

100ℓ  - $2 (In Canada, general garbage bag that is sold in grocery store, is 75ℓ)

paper cup - 10 cent (if you bring this cup to store,  you can cash back)

plastic bag for shopping - 10 cent (if you bring this cup to store, you can cash back)

Sorting recyclable materials is not easy.

Plastic part:separate to plastic kind of PET, PVC, PP, PE, PSP.

Steel, Aluminum: wash and separate lid part from can’s cylinder.

Propane gas bin, spray bin: make a hole for blow out

Paper: fasten all paper with string, remove all from paper, wash, dry and make flat milk package,

           no coating paper

Used batteries, fluorescent light: nearest community office.

Medicine: Pharmacy

<Recycling bins at Home>

<community Recycle Bins >

<Public Place Recycle bins>

JAPAN........

I lived in City of Nara in Japan. Nara is the first capital city of Japan. I think, Japan is operating perfect recycling system. Japanese consider all used stuff is not garbage, is resource. They try 3R Campaign that means Reuse, Reduce, Recycling. Japan does not strong rules about garbage, but they join in recycling by themselves.

 I joined in recycling with 3 ways. 
First way was government collection. All kind of plastic was collected every Wednesday and glass or Aluminum, iron steel were collected once per month by garbage trucks. For recycling, I washed glass bottles and removed all paper labels, after then I separated and put in the bins like colour bottle or clear bottle.

Second, when I went to shopping, I brought plastic bottles, egg cases, styrofoams to store. Most supermarket stores have recycling bins in front of their entrance. I put them in each bins.

<Shopping Mall Entrance in Japan>

<I had to separated lid from bottle. Both are different recycling materials>

  Last, I collected newspaper, magazine, flyer paper and clothes for our community donation. Our apartment community supported concert tickets for the nearest high school from our place. We chose one recycling company and the company visited our place for collecting recycling stuff once per month. The company paid some money to the high school. I don't have the picture, but I was proud of supporting concert tickets to high school students with my a little efforts.

I wish our classmates join in recycling with pleasure.

by Seoyoung