the gimhae garbage police

garbage disposal in korea is a very specific kind of thing. at home we have recycling and regular garbage - if you don't recycle it isn't "the end of the world" (but you should!!!) but we also have LOTS of space - something that korea is lacking. so, they have very specific rules about the way you dispose of your waste.

they don't have recycling bins like we do back home. you just kind of put everything out and different trucks come by and pick up things according to what's in the bag. you're supposed to use a special bag for "real" garbage, but the recycling can just go out any which way (and it very often does).

the special bags are blue and have "gimhae for you" written on the side, you can buy them at just about any grocery store for about fifty cents each. at home i used to buy ten bags for a dollar and they were five times the size of these bags... but that's the way it works here, so i have been obliging since i arrived. usually i will use a grocery bag and then put that inside the special bag and put that out (the blue ones tear very easily, someone told me they are biodegradable, so maybe that's why...?)

on monday, however, i was out of blue bags, so i just put out the grocery bag cause it was stinky and the heat wouldn't allow me to keep it on my balcony for even another hour. i see the grocery bags on the street all the time, so didn't think it would be a problem. in fact there are all kinds of bags and piles of trash on the street all the time... at least i used a bag, right?

piles of it...everywhere... blue bag??

the next morning there was a knock at my door - around 9:30 - i was leaving for work in a couple of minutes, good thing i was home and awake! anyway, i often won't answer the door if it's some random korean because they're usually trying to sell me God. i peeked out my peep hole and saw a man. i asked who was there, like he would understand, but he said something and so i opened the door.

he flashed a card with his picture and started rambling on, trying to look in my apartment, which i didn't let him do. he kept rambling on. i kept saying "i don't speak korean" and "i'm sorry, i don't know." finally he started rifling through his bag, while i was thinking "oh, here we go with the pamphlets..." but he pulled out this piece of paper that looked like a form of some kind.

he flipped the paper over and there was one of the class sheets from my after school class, stapled to that was a paper with my name and address printed on it. then he flipped that over and showed me a picture of my grocery bag sat on the curb and below that a picture of my grocery bag torn open and the garbage strewn throughout the street!

i confirmed that it was my bag, but still had no idea what he was saying so i managed to mime that he should give me his phone number and i'd have a korean call him. he gave me a little paper with a phone number and left. i went to school.

my co-teacher is away on training so i had to find someone at work who speaks enough english to be able to communicate with me. thankfully song was there. she called the number and explained to me that the man was angry because i hadn't put my garbage in the special bag and because i thrown paper into the bag (the paper being my class list and some pizza fliers - anything bigger than that goes out with the recycling). then she said that in korea you get fined for not putting out the garbage correctly.

where's the blue bag??? my garbage was put out next to this pile.

i played innocent "special bags?" "fine?" "what?" ??? sometimes i think i've missed my calling as an actress! anyway, she said that she told the man that i was a foreigner and that i didn't know the rules and could he please take that into consideration? he told her he'd have to havea meeting about it and would call her back the next day.

thankfully the waegook card got me off the hook this time! no fine for me, just a warning. but now i'm scared to put out my garbage! i confirmed with song what exactly should go in the blue bags and whether i can use the grocery bags for recycling and she said that was fine... so at least i know now. no one actually ever told me how to dispose of my garbage. i was just told to use the blue bag for anything and everything, except food, which goes in the nasty, stinky compost boxes out in the street...

compost box with other garbage strewn about and hate to be so picky, but where is that blue bag? i couldn't even find one to take a picture of!

this box looks cleaner in the picture than it actually is... imagine the other side is covered with food stains and the inside hasn't been washed - ever - and there are flies swarming it... who wants to touch that with nowhere to wash their hands??

it's all good to be so specific about things, i understand there is limited space for waste in this country (like everywhere) but, man, when you get stuck walking anywhere near the compost garbage truck, you wish that you were dead instead. and in this heat, the bins themselves reek to high heaven! for more on the composting process visit traveling chick.