Around the world, most of the 1.4 billion tons throw away food every year go to the landfill. When it rots, it contaminates water and soil and releases large amounts of it methaneone of the most powerful greenhouse gases.
But not in South Korea, which banned food scraps from landfills nearly 20 years ago. Here, much of it is turned into fodder, fertilizer and fuel to heat homes.
Food waste is one of the biggest contributor to climate changenot only because of methane but also because the energy and resources used to produce and transport methane are also wasted.
The system in South Korea, which keeps about 90% of food discarded from landfills and incinerators, has been studied by governments around the world. Officials from China, Denmark and elsewhere toured the South Korean facilities. New York City, where will request all residents to separate their food waste from other waste next fall, having observed South Korea’s system for years, a city spokesman Toilet department speak.
While some cities have similar programs, few if any other countries do what Korea does on a national scale. It’s because of the cost, says Paul West, a senior scientist at Project disbursement, a research group researching ways to reduce carbon emissions. According to the country’s environment ministry, although individuals and businesses pay a small fee to get rid of food waste, the program costs South Korea about $600 million a year.
However, Mr. West and other experts say it should be simulated. “The South Korean example helps reduce emissions on a larger scale,” he said.
Korean culinary traditions tend to lead to leftovers. Small side dishes – sometimes a few, sometimes more than a dozen – accompany most meals. Over the years, practically all that remains has gone underground.
However, the mountainous terrain of the country limits the number of landfills that can be built and the distance between residential areas. In 1995, the government made paper and plastic recycling mandatory, but leftovers continued to be buried with other types of waste.
Kee-Young Yoo, a researcher at the government-run Seoul Institute who has advised cities on food waste disposal, said political support for the change was spurred by those live near the dump, who complain about the smell. Because stews are the mainstay of Korean cuisine, the food thrown away here tends to have a high water content, which means larger volume and a stronger odor.
“When all that goes to waste, it gives off a horrible stench,” said Mr. Yoo.
Since 2005, it is illegal to send food waste to landfills. The local government has built hundreds of facilities to handle it. Consumers, restaurateurs, truck drivers and others are part of a network that collects information and turns it into something useful.
At Jongno Stew Village, a popular lunch spot in the Dobong district north of Seoul, pollock stew and kimchi jjigae are top sellers. But regardless of order, the owner Lee Hae-yeon also serves side dishes including kimchi, tofu, boiled bean sprouts and marinated perilla leaves.
“Customers can help themselves more,” said Mr. Lee, “and “people will take more of what they will eat”. “Koreans love the mistake of abundance when it comes to food.”
Mr. Lee has to pay for that: about 2,800 won, a little more than $2, for every 20 liters of food he throws out. All day, leftovers are put in a bucket in the kitchen, and when the door is closed, Mr. Lee will dump them in a designated trash can outside. On the lid, he affixed a sticker purchased from the school district – proof that he paid for the disposal.
In the morning, companies hired by the district will clear those bins. Park Myung-joo and his team started rolling on the streets at 5 a.m., tearing off stickers on trash cans and dumping their contents into the back of their truck.
They work every day except Sunday. “Even waiting a day can create a large amount of waste piled up,” said Mr. Park.
Around 11 a.m., they arrived at Dobong’s processing facility, where they unloaded the mud.
Debris — bones, seeds, shells — was picked up by hand. (Dobong’s plant is one of the last in the country where this process is not automated.) A conveyor belt carries waste to a crusher, which grinds the waste into small pieces. Anything that is not easily chopped, such as a plastic bag, is filtered out and burned.
Then the waste is baked and dehydrated. The moisture enters the pipes leading to the water treatment plant, where some of the moisture is used to produce biogas. The rest is purified and discharged into a nearby stream.
What’s left of the waste at the treatment plant, four hours after Mr. Park’s team left it, is ground into the final product: a dry, brown powder that smells like dirt. It is a complementary chicken and duck feed, rich in protein and fiber, and is donated to any farm that wants it, said Sim Yoon-sik, facility manager.
Inside the factory, strong odors cling to fabrics and hair. But outside, they are barely noticeable. Pipes run through the building, purifying the air through a chemical process before the exhaust system is released.
Other factories operate differently. At the biogas facility in Goyang, a suburb of Seoul, food waste – nearly 70,000 tonnes annually – undergoes anaerobic digestion. It sits in large tanks for up to 35 days while the bacteria do its job, breaking down organic matter and producing biogas, consisting mainly of methane and carbon dioxide.
The biogas was sold to a local company, which says it is used to heat 3,000 homes in Goyang. The remaining solids are mixed with wood chips to make fertilizer and given away.
Every ton of food waste that rots in a landfill releases greenhouse gases equivalent to 800 pounds of carbon dioxide, Researchers have found. Lee Chang-gee, an engineer at the Goyang plant, said turning it into biogas would cut it in half.
Critics note that for all its benefits, the Korean program failed to achieve one of its goals: getting people to throw away less food. According to data from the Department of the Environment, the amount of food discarded across the country has been more or less stable over the years.
The system had other flaws. There have been scattered complaints: In Deogyang, a district of Goyang, residents of one village said the smell from a processing facility used to be so bad that they couldn’t open windows. That factory has been shut down since 2018 because of protests from neighbors.
Mo Sung Yun, 68, a Deogyang resident, said: “When the factory closed, all the problems disappeared.
But most plants across the country — unlike the landfills they’re essentially replacing — have drawn few serious complaints from neighbors. Government officials say steady technology improvements have led to cleaner and more efficient operations.
It also makes handling easier for many people. At apartment complexes around the country, residents are issued a card to scan each time they empty their food waste into designated trash cans. The crate weighed what they had put in; at the end of the month they get a bill.
Eom Jung-suk, 60, who lives in such a complex, said: “The trash cans have become cleaner and less smelly.
Ms. Eom has never been charged more than a dollar for the service. In April, she paid 26 cents. But the monthly bill makes her more aware of how much she throws away.
“Just today, at breakfast, I told my girls to eat just enough,” she said.
