Trash Cans Opsayo

Pronunciation: Ops-eye-yo. 

Translation: Not here.

They do not have trash cans here. Really. In my now four months in Korea, I have seen two in my city, and I can tell you exactly where they are. When we were in China, the fact that they had trash cans everywhere was one of the nicest things for me. I haven't been able to figure out why a country would do something like this until today.

And of course, it's because of money.

I teach a class of upper level students, and we spend a lot of time just talking in English. There are only two girls; and when we're done, I often ask them to teach me new vocabulary or ask questions about the Korean culture. Today they both did speeches on the importance of the environment, so it was relevant for me to question the trash cans.

From what I was told, they put them out on the streets for awhile about 5 years ago. In Korea, they have specific bags they have to buy for their trash. They are very expensive. Recycling is very big out here and we have separate areas to put different kinds of trash. I find it humorous that recycling is so important but they have trash everywhere in the streets..

Back to the point.  The money made from the trash bags goes straight to the government. And, it's illegal not to use them. What a system, huh. When they had the garbage cans on the street, people were taking their trash from home and dumping it in and around all the trash cans instead of buying the bags. So, not only was there trash everywhere just like there is now, but the government wasn't getting their money. 

The girls said they did away with that pretty quickly. According to them, the amount of trash in the streets now is no worse than it was when they actually had trash cans. I find that hard to believe. Who would have ever thought trash cans could create such a mess?

To be fair though, I don't use the trash bags. I cannot afford them at a buck 50 a piece. I use my leftover bags from Home Plus, and I guess because I'm a weguken they don't say anything to me. Thank goodness. I wouldn't be past putting trash in the street, too, if I had to pay that much just to put it away.