I feel like korea would do better with neighborhood dumpsters or like.. building dumpsters. Some of the apartments have it, but villas and smaller residences seem to struggle with it.

Your first problem is listening to random old people that tell you what to do. Stop that. The trick is to just put your garbage out when no one is watching and don't put identifying information in your garbage, yes people will check. Korea is a total shit show when it comes to garbage collection, one of the perks of developing in a matter of a few decades.

My in-laws' neighbourhood is like this. It's not a bad area at all, but all the rubbish mounded randomly in the street makes it look like there's been a localized apocalypse. The local government really needs to step up in these areas and think of a solution because it really ruins the tenor of the neighbourhood and robs it of any potential feeling of community pride. Each villa needs its own set of wheelie bins or something or a communal dumpster or something - whatever it takes to keep waste out of sight and not strewn across the footpath.

Rubbish collection seems very fragmented unless you live in an apartment complex (아파트 master race reporting in). It might be neater if each building could just have some wheelie bins rather than just leaving the bags lying around.

One room area is ghetto of Korea I used to live those area myself ㅋㅋ

Unless it's changed since we lived there, you buy special bags at the mini mart that include pickup and you put it on the street. You pay by volume, not weight.

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Also, a related policy is to prevent trash cans being used for terrorism.

Lived there for years and only found out at the end when speaking to a police officer friend that even in large tourist areas the tend to avoid public trash can for fear of NK agents putting bombs in there.

With that said, it sounded like a convient excuse compared to the simple fact that you are charged by the trash bag.

I understand that in America you may get shot for knocking on a neighbor’s door to ask, but I highly doubt that is something you need to worry about in Korea.

Wdym no trash service? Like the city doesn’t pick it up?

You can use this I guess??

https://www.covering.app/

Post this on Korea sub. I am sure they will find a good answer for you. As far as I know there is trash pick up day and your neighbors will pile trash on the streetside on that day.

Just go down the nearest subway entrance, there are always trash cans to be found in the stations.

Convenience store, public bathroom trash can or carry it with you in bag or purse until you get back to your accomodation

You don’t. You carry it back to your accommodations and throw it away there. Or if it’s at night and there are already piles and piles of trash, you put it there.

I just carried a trash bag in my backpack and then threw it away when I got back to my accommodation. (Airbnb)

I threw a little trash away in a convenience store and the lady snapped at me even though we bought stuff there

Watch some YouTube videos on trash sorting in South Korea, then go study the bins in your area a bit. What do they put in the bags?

You can put anything in it except recyclable waste and food waste.

No glass, plastic, other recyclables, food, or electronics. Those go elsewhere.

Anything else goes in that bag.

>Our Airbnb-Host told us, white is for recycling, orange is for normal. But we don’t really get it - because we cannot put any cans or plastic in orange bag?

You basically answered your own question. In Korea, metal cans and many types of plastics are recycled. That's why they go into the white bag, and is also why they shouldn't go into the yellow one. The yellow bag goes to the landfill. The rules are fairly well followed in general, and this contributes to Korea having one of the highest recycling rates in the world.

It’s really obvious! Just follow the instructions on the bag!

There’s probably a plastic container near your apartment for food scraps. Stray cats attack street level food waste bags. Also for the bags say eum-sik-mool seu-laeggi bongtu jusaeyo

There must be a food garbage container, no? Do you see a bin?

How does your apartment not have garbage. That doesn’t seem possible. The food waste bin is usually fully enclosed or else it would stink and animals would get it.

> in a biodegradable bag

In case you didn't know: there is a specific type of metered bag for food trash (different from the regular metered trash bags). Can be purchased at convenience stores. ("음식물 쓰레기 봉투")

My native Korean friend didn't even know this: even if there is a plastic food trash bin, you are still supposed to use the metered food trash bags. (Not sure if this varies by apartment/building? She lives in one of those large apartment complexes.)

When there is no plastic food trash bin or it's full, I think it's OK to place the the metered food trash bags on the ground next to the bin or other regular metered trash bags.

okay i figured it out and i bought the food waste bags for my area as well, thanks everyone!

Except for things made of cans and plastic, you can throw everything else in general trash bags. You should put anything made of cans or plastic into the recycling bags that your building provides for everyone.

Of course, ajusshi always give you an answer. He is always happy to help you :)

Not sure how trash works in your apartment. That would all be in recycling. Baskets in paper, metal in metal bin and so on.

We even have a bin for electronics put in 2 years ago by the city.

Post it on Karrot (당근) for free and ppl will come pick it up from you. Better than tossing it

Is it a building with ajusshi who control the trash and even like private pickup? If so, you show them the items and they tell you if they will get a sticker for it (and you give them cash for it) or just “commercial waste big 100 L orange trash bag.”

Post it all on FB for free. People will take it

If the accommodation that you live in has some kind of maintenance office (관리실) you can try asking them about it.

You are correct in that you need to pay for someone to collect this but Apartment Complexes have centralized this process and will have a place where residents put such furniture and you just pay the money to the Apartment management. No idea if officetels or villas or other kinds of accommodation also handle it this way.

Put them outside for a night if you live in a villa - they'll probably be taken by the next morning. If nobody "claims" them then buy the ticket other posters have mentioned. I've only had to buy the stickers once or twice and I've got rid of loads of stuff over the years. Every other time someone has taken it over night. If you live in an officetel or apartment the adjeoshi will almost certainly sort the sticker for you, and tell you where to put it. Just give him cash. It's less than 10k even for large furniture.

The easiest way is to ask your landlord if you are in a small one room place. Sometimes they will take them off your hands for free if they can reuse them. If they can’t they will get the stickers that others have talked about in this thread.

Someone said 동사무소, but in some neighborhood, you have to go to 구청 instead. So make a phone call prior to visiting them.

If you just want to throw away them, go to a near community centre(동사무소), buy stickers for large wastes disposals(대형 폐기물 스티커), put the stickers on each of them and leave the wastes on a near street. You can print the stickers out from the govt website too.

I've heard some people freeze their food waste before it rots and then deal with it later.

Also, if you're willing to spend some cash, you can buy a food processor. It's pricey, but then you'll need to deal with the food waste only once in a few months AFAIK.

People will literally track you down by finding your name on something (like a receipt) in the trash or even looking at CCTV to see who put it there. Not to make you paranoid but just saying.

Put in the freezer, that's what I do and what I was told to do. Doesn't smell at all just make sure you pack it well and put the food in it in an "effective way" because when it freeze in a weird position you lose room in the bag (if that make sense). I wouldn't recommend not recycling depending on where you live/how strict your landlord/residence is you might get either fined or publicly humiliated (cctv is everywhere they'll print your picture and put it in the building), and also these days with the heat and humidity you don't want to risk cockroaches being attracted.

Thank you all for your inputs. Looks like I'm gonna go for a synergistic, end-to-end solution to streamline my sustainable logistics needs: store in fridge.

I have a plastic container with a screw on lid I keep food waste in, I keep it in the freezer so it doesn't rot/stink, then just empty it when it's full (once or twice a day).

Have you got a green bin with an access card or u gotta put it in food waste bags?

I know it's annoying, but at a policy level it's very progressive and needs to be done. there's 25M people in the greater Seoul area, and if waste isn't managed properly, this place would be a fucking dump.