I am not quite done with my conclusion, but here’s my rough draft!:)
The stench of trash is now a trademark of Koreatown in New York City. In 2012, when I first visited Koreatown in the hope that I would get a taste of my hometown, the smell of rotting garbage was the first impression ingrained in my mind. However, after I had more tour experiences in the city, I’ve come to the realization that it’s not the smell of Koreatown but of the entire city.
Moving to the United States from South Korea in 2012, my family had to adjust to life in the United States. Among scores of things that we had to adjust to, recycling habit was one of the hardest and slowest things that changed. In Korea, recycling is mandatory. Recycled items are disposed of in any clear plastic bag, divided by items, and separated into paper, plastic, metal and glass before disposal. Since each apartment building has a set date and time once a week to recycle, residents gather around recycling containers all at the same time and recycle their divided items. If anyone throws wrong items into a wrong container unknowingly, an apartment janitor, who is a watchdog of the whole process, will be their guide.
For food waste disposal, residents of Korea are required to use biodegradable bags, which are priced according to sizes, and throw them into a designated container. Since 2013, the country installed a radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based centralized system of food waste collection in an apartment building’s parking area. In addition, the machine weighs the waste and charges each resident accordingly. In order to reduce the weight, people try their best to remove the moisture from their food waste and oftentimes dry the skin of fruits or vegetables. Since the dried food waste can turn right into animal feeds or compost, it reduces fuel cost used in the process of turning recycling food waste into animal feeds.
According to Intelligent Living, Lee Kang-soo, head of the local government-run food recycling program in Seoul’s Songpa District, said, “Over the last six years, we reduced a total of about 47,000 tons of food waste [with the RFID machines]. We assume it’s because people want to pay less money, since the cost increases with the weight.” Although it was an increase in price that motivated households to recycle, the practice has been benefiting both the residents and our climate.
Korea, which might seem like a recycling pro, was actually not like this back in the 1990s. According to “Korean Household Waste Management and Recycling Behavior, Seunghae Lee, the author, says, “Korea has been through rapid industrial and economic development, causing serious environmental problems including disposal of Municipal Solid Waste,” which means garbage that “comes mainly from homes.” Seeing the garbage growing larger and unmanageable, the government felt the need to do something and implemented “the volume-based waste fee system (unit pricing system)” in 1995. Despite the enforcement of the law, residents in Korea had difficulty adjusting to the new system. In New Yorker, Kim Mi-Hwa, the head of the Korea Zero Waste Movement Network, said, “We went door to door to talk to residents. We would bring people in for a tour of the food-waste facility. We would educate people about how it was healthy. I’ve been shouted at a lot.”
Now putting everything into one bin, Kyung-sun Lee, my mom, said, “It was inconvenient and difficult at first. But people got used to it.” Living in the states for ten years, our family got used to throwing recyclables and others into one plastic bag and got used to things enough to not feel bad and uncomfortable about it. However, in a recent conversation with Kelly Denning, a campaigner at Center for Biological Diversity, I felt like someone coldcoked me in the face and ran. She told me that “items that are not recycled end up in our environment like ocean plastics. It can be buried in a landfill where it generates greenhouse gas emissions. And a lot of times, even the materials that go into our recycling facility is not always fully recycled.”
What was long forgotten in my memory was the sheer fact that trash would end up somewhere in our environment and generate greenhouse gas emissions. Lee, my mom, also agreed with me that she also forgot the importance of recycling properly. “When I first came to the United States, I wondered how this country would be able to sustain this recycling process. The land is plenty, but it can’t be indefinite.”
True to her words, in 2018, China banned the import of recycling materials from the United States. Losing its long-time dumping ground, the United States started throwing its trash into landfills.