How does South Korea handle food waste?
In one corner of the ground floor of a Korean apartment complex, two or three dark gray box-shaped terminals stand in a row. People walk over carrying small containers of food waste and tap a card. When the lid opens, they tip the contents inside, and the screen shows the weight of what was just deposited, along with the fee.
South Korea banned the landfilling of food waste altogether in 2005. In 2013, it made jongnyangje, a pay-as-you-throw system for food waste, mandatory nationwide. Food waste is collected separately from general trash and processed into animal feed or compost. The recovery and recycling rate is about 95 percent, among the highest in the world.
In low-rise multi-family homes and detached houses, food waste is placed in designated bags and set out in alley bins at fixed times. In apartment complexes, RFID terminals are the standard: tap a card, the lid opens, the weight is measured automatically, and the fee is charged to each household. About 64 percent of South Korea’s population lives in apartments.
Vegetable peels from the dinner table, an apple core, scraps of kimchi, a few grains of rice. On a small screen at one side of the complex, the weight and numbers remember which household’s table they came from.