Things are different in Korea-4

Korea does rubbish a little differently from home. When we first arrived working out the rubbish system was really hard. We were told all sorts of different things, which made me wonder if Koreans even know how the system works. This is what we decided to do (but if you come to Korea, don't take this as the rule it is only a guess!) Firstly you have to separate out your food scrapes and put them in a little compost bucket, which you can put out for collection 3 times a week. This is actually not quiet as disgusting as I thought it would be, and I can even clean out the bucket without dry retching (people who have seen my clean my bag teeth will know this is a pretty good accomplishment)! We keep our food scrapes in the freezer until we put them out to keep them from stinking up the house.

Our compost, waiting for collection on the doorstep.

Secondly, you have to separate the recycling and rubbish (just the same as at home), but instead of putting them in bins you just put the bag out on the street. As far as we can tell there are no certain nights to do this, just when ever you want. Often this results in bags being split open and there being rubbish all over the streets. 

Rubbish on the corner of our street.

I haven't seen it this bad, but it has come pretty close.

Adjuma's and Adjushee's (old women and men) come and sort through the recycling, taking whatever is more valuable to the recycling station??? (this is only a guess). Sometimes Brenton will take our recycling down on his way to work and when I leave 15 minutes later all that is left is a water bottle! They must have a recycling rader superpower.