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South Korea Launches Pay as You Trash Initiative
1 Min Read
The South Korean government has launched a new initiative entitled Pay as You Trash, which requires residents to separate food waste from their trash and dispose of it in a centralized bin. To access the bin, residents are required to pay for their waste by the kilo.
South Korea residents currently have three payment options for discarding their food waste, and so far the new centralized bins seem to be working.
Through efforts like Pay as You Trash, the government has reduced food waste from 5.1 million tons in 2008 to 4.82 million tons in 2014.
Oddity Central has the details:
In a bid to control the nation’s growing problem with food wastage, the South Korean government has started a unique initiative – ‘Pay as You Trash’. Residents are required to separate their food waste from the rest of their trash and dump it separately in a centralised bin. And in order to access the bin, they actually need to pay by the kilo!
As of now, the South Korean government has three methods in place to charge citizens for the food thrown away. One is through an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) card – when users tap this card – embedded with their personal tag – over a specially designed food waste bin, the lid will open, allowing them to dump their waste. This waste is automatically weighed and recorded in the user’s account. The user needs to settle this bill on a monthly basis. Each RFID bin costs 1.7 million won ($1,500) and can cater to 60 households.
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