The Only Guide to Trash and Waste Disposal in Korea You'll Ever Need

Hey, I’m Yul Schuhmacher! In August 2024, I moved to Korea for a one-year working holiday. While I’m here, I’m learning the ins and outs of life in Korea and discovering what it takes to settle in as a foreigner. In this article, I will tell you everything I learned about how to handle trash in Korea!

Understanding Trash Separation in Korea

In Korea, proper waste management is a crucial aspect of maintaining environmental cleanliness and sustainability. The government has implemented strict rules regarding trash separation to reduce landfill waste and promote recycling. Understanding these guidelines is essential for residents and newcomers alike. If you are like me, you will quickly be confused by the vast amount of labels and rules. But don't worry, I am here to help.

There is a lot of conflicting information about waste in Korea out there. This is partly due to different regions handling trash differently. When researching for this guide, I went through multiple cities' guides on trash. If you follow the guide, you should be able to stay out of trouble. However, if you are unsure about your local rules, it's best to check them up first.

In the following explanation, I will go over the intended seperation of trash in Korea. Reality often looks different to what the law says, but going against the law can get you fined if you are unlucky.

Types of Waste and Their Separation

In Korea, Trash is seperated into groups. These are: General Waste (일반 쓰레기), Food Waste (음식물 쓰레기), Recyclables (재활용품), Oversized Waste (대형 폐기물), Special Waste and Clothes (의류).

However, you will quickly find out that these are not all the categories by which trash is sperated. But without spoiling anything, lets get into each category.

General Waste (일반 쓰레기):

General waste is everything that counts as non-recyclable. Non-recyclable in this context also includes recyclable items, that are too dirty. Too dirty can already mean "stains in styroform" or "sauce on some packaging". Here, you will also throw in any other household trash, like tissues, receipts (these are not recyclable paper) and mixed packaging items. Cups from cupnoodles also go in here.

To do all that, you need a special general waste bag. These bags can be bought in pretty much every convinience store, however, you need to always buy the correct one for your neighbourhood. Sometimes, convinience stores will carry bags for two seperate neighbourhoods, so when buying bags there, the clerk will ask you which one you need. In that case, you need to tell them where you live, so they can give you the right ones. If you don't happen to speak Korean, you can just show them your home location on Naver Maps. To start the whole conversation off, you can say:

"일반 쓰레기 봉투 있어요?"(Ilban ssuregi bongtu issoyo?) - do you have generate waste bags

"일반 쓰레기 봉투 한개 주세요."(Ilban ssuregi bongtu hange chuseyo.) - please give me one general waste bag.

Sometimes, they will ask you about the size too and show you two different ones. My advice here is to just point at which one you need and say "big" or "small". They will understand.

Food Waste (음식물 쓰레기)

Food waste is relatively simple, but it comes with a surprise. Most people will assume anything that is either food or byproduct of food will go in here, but that's not entirely true. While food, fruit and vegetable peels and and meat can go in here, products that cannot be eaten by animals (lifestock) should not be thrown into food waste. This would include egg shells, roots, walnut shells, bones, pineapple and garlic peel, seeds (like avocado kernels), etc.. These items should be thrown into the general waste instead.

Food waste also gets it's own special garbage bag, called 음식물 쓰레기 봉투(umshikmul ssuregi bongtu). To buy one, just swap the "일반 쓰레기 봉투"(ilban ssuregi bongtu) from the previous sentence with the new one. Personally, I have not been to a location yet that doesn't have a dedicated container for food waste though, so if you are lucky like me, you won't need to buy any.

Recyclables (재활용품)

Recyclables include paper, plastic, soft plastic (here called vinyl), glass and cans are sorted in seperated bins. Each packaging that is recycleable will have a lable with the corresponding bin on it, but beware, it is not that easy:

Paper

Anything paper except for receipts (they go into general waste). Cardboard, milk cartons, newspapers.
While researching for this post, I have seen some cities exclude milk cartons from paper and instead ask for a sperate "milk cartons" bin. Either way, make sure to rinse your milk or juice cartons before throwing them out.

Plastic

Bottles and containers made from PET, PVC, PE,PP, PS, PSP (label on the product will indicate the type). You also need to take off the label of bottles, as this counts as vinyl. You also need to take off the bottle cap. In some places, cap and bottle have to be seperated, in others they can go into the same bin. The reason is that it is made out of a different plastic and it being screwed on will make recycling harder for the machines. It's best to make sure what's the right thing in your region, or look out for what everyone else in your appartment complex seems to be doing.

Vinyl

Vinyl includes all kind of soft plastics. This will most often be packaging of snacks, instant ramen or other kinds of wrappers. However, you need to make sure that they are not dirty and if they are, rinse them out. Else, throw them in the general waste. Some vinyl labels will have the korean word 비닐류(vinyl-ryu) printed on them, but in english it only says "Other". This may seem misleading, but it actually refers to the plastic type, not the waste bin. Generally, I would advise to ignore the english labels and only ever read the korean ones (if you can) or translate them with your phone's cam.

Styrofoam

This is relatively self-exlpanatory. Anything styrofoam that isn't contaminated by food or stains goes in here. Since styrofoam absorbs some colors from food easily, this will often have to go into general waste.

Glass

Glass includes glass bottles, sauce jars and similar. However, you should not put lightbulbs (special waste) or shattered glass in here. Instead, wrap shattered glass in newspapers and throw it into the general waste. Busan's official website says Soju bottles and beer cans can be "sold back to the market", which I assume is supposed to mean "can be returned" (the website suffers from several lost in translation texts). However, I have never heard of this before and haven't seen it in practice. Instead, everyone I know (me included) just has a bin outside labeled with "glass". As far as my research and experience on this topic went, you do not have to remove the label of the glass bottles, but you do need to remove the bottle cap. In most cases, this will be alluminum and goes into...

Cans

Cans includes most things metal. However, it does not include batteries (special waste) or aluminum foil (general waste). Most items you want to throw in here are cans of some sort, hence the name.

Oversized Waste (대형 폐기물)

Oversized waste is a bit more complex as it is not regulary picked up. Instead, you need to organize it yourself. Since this may be different in every region, it's best if you ask your landlord or other people in your house about how to handle oversized waste. This kind of waste includes anythign big that doesn't go into normal waste, like matresses, furniture or large appliances.

Special Waste

Special waste is everything electronic or hazardous. Here you can throw away your batteries, your broken charging cable, lightbulbs, etc.. The location for the special waste bins is dependant on where you live. Often times, they can be found in local community centers. If you're not sure, ask your landlord.

Clothes (의류)

Clothes, curtains, bags and shoes can be thrown in clothing containers. You can find them around town, usually labeled with symbols that indicate clothing.

Best practices

When throwing out trash, there are a few things to consider. Ideally, you'd want to make your trash as compact as possible. This is a rule in some places and a suggestion in others. This is especially important when it comes to cans, milk cartons and plastic bottles. Of course, you don't have to compress all your trash into small cubes like Wall-E, but making sure your cardbaorg boxes are flat already goes a long way.

Since the air in Korea is very humid throughout the year and it's very hot in summer, you should also consider doing daily trash runs, at least when it comes to anything that has food on it (general waste and food waste). This will help prevent smells and especially cockroaches from even considering moving into your place. I also recommend rinsing out cans and milk cartons directly after emptying them, for the same reason.

Thanks for reading, have fun recycling

I hope this guide was helpful. If you got any questions or suggestions about changes, please let me know using the contact form below!

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