One of the mysteries of expat life in Korea, is that you never know where the hell to throw your trash. Not like in a restaurant, or a coffee shop, or even a bank. They have trash receptacles like normal places in the West. But when you walk down the street, there are literally NO garbage cans. And Seoul is a very pedestrian place. You are basically always taking a bus, taking the subway, and walking everywhere. There is also a lot of street food, and people tend to buy coffee and snacks from the ubiquitous convenience stores, and walk around with them. Or at least I do...Also, drinking in public is perfectly legal - and widely practiced. Koreans love hanging out outside with friends and eating food and drinking. I firmly believe that Hongik Park, at the center of Hongdae, is one of the best (and cheapest) drinking spots in the city.
But then after you have your hot-dog-on-a-stick, or your canned coffee beverage, or your soju, or finish doing whatever activity you are doing - what the hell do you do with the trash?
There are trash cans in the subways stations, but only at the platforms. And occasionally outside the station entrance. But other than that, I would be hard pressed to really name a place where you can find a trash can in public space.
So, this is what ends up happening: massive piles of trash everywhere in the street. People just throw trash on the ground all over the place. And then the city pays an army of people to constantly sweep it up and cart it away. It's honestly kinda weird. And gross, for the capital city of a now-developed nation. Having been raised not to litter, I actually had to try hard to get used to not feeling guilty about just throwing my trash on top of the pre-established trash pile on the sidewalk. But that is basically what you end up doing...
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| From Street Photography |
But - wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles - this could perchance be changing. The city fathers seem to be fairly obsessed, as of late, with trying to make Seoul look more impressive to international visitors. Seoul is becoming a global city for really the first time, and stuff is changing.
Last week when I was walking to work, I saw this. I had never seen it before, and I have walked past this corner a thousand times. And I cannot remember the last time I saw one of these. But they seem to be appearing in places around Hongdae. Perhaps a new wind is blowing in public waste disposal:
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| From Street Photography |
The lack of public trash receptacles is a direct result of the government implementing the policy requiring people to pay per bag to throw away their own trash.
ReplyDeleteThe worry (legitimate, methinks) was that cheap-arse people would simply dump all their non-recyclables in public trash receptacles, so they were made few and far between to prevent this abuse.
What they should have done was just set up a lot of trash containers with small openings so that people with the popsicle sticks and napkins, etc., could throw away their garbage but it would be inconvenient for a household to dump a whole bag's worth in.
That said, here in Honolulu we have an adequate number of receptacles but we still have trash all along the walkways. It's really quite appalling.
(And that picture... I haven't been back in Seoul for a couple years, but has the graffiti problem — very little when I was last there — exploded that much?!)