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Waste Sorting

by | 22-03-2015 20:48







Waste sorting in Korea is a part of everyday life where you can't throw away any garbage without classifying or sorting by type. I would like to share this part of my everyday life that is held in my classroom and my house. At the back of my classroom, there are two separate trash cans for sorting the waste. Garbage for recycling should be put in the "Recycling" bin and the rest of the garbage should be put in the "Waste" bin. In the Recycling bin, students put recyclable wastes such as paper, metal, aluminum, glass, polystyrene, plastic, etc., and in the Waste bin students put non-recyclable waste such as combined plastic, ball-point pen, bones, shells, porcelain, CD, leather, etc. We are taught to separate plastic covers from paper or metal caps from glass bottles. We take turns to be on a weekly duty to move the trash bins to the backyard of the school where janitorial staffs separate recycling trashes once again into subtypes such as metal, paper, glass and plastic. Batteries and light bulbs need special care by separately being collected due to hazardous materials.

In the residential area, waste sorting is a little more intense than school area because households dispose more garbage than students at school. In the backyard of my house, there are trash bins with more detailed classification such as metal/aluminum, paper, book, glass, plastic, polystyrene, light bulbs, batteries, furniture, clothing, shoes and food garbage. For non-recyclable trash, every household must use government-designated bag. There is also government-designated bag for food garbage collection. Failing to use a designated bag results in a serious offense and is subject to fines. Now it has been more than 20 years since the Korean Government started use of designated bag and recycling collection. As a result, the total volume of waste reduced 50% and recycling rate has doubled.