Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

I recently read a New York Times article about your decision on implementing a new food-waste sorting policy, and I would like to share my experience in South Korea with a similar program, which I hope will be insightful and useful for New York City’s efforts.

One of first things you notice when you visit South Korea is almost no litter in the streets. To some extent, this may be due to the strong ethic defined by an old South Korean slogan  – “Hongik-Ingan” (“Devotion to the welfare  of all mankind”). But I think the lack of litter owes a lot to the rigid recycling regulation enforced by the Korean government.  South Korea is trying to use 2% of its GDP to enhance its green initiatives.

A year ago, my husband, baby girl and I relocated from New York City to Songdo City, which is about 20 minutes from Incheon Airport. This city has been built from scratch on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land along the Yellow Sea. The whole city is based on LEED green building standards, and over 120 buildings will seek LEED certification, which will make Songdo the largest LEED development in the world. (But don’t be impressed yet. There’s more!)

In Songdo, there are several waste item categories by which garbage needs to be sorted before it can be disposed. These categories include plastic in bottles, glass, regular plastic, metal, newspaper, cardboard and food. I still haven’t confirmed this yet, but it seems that food wastes have to be further sorted by (1) food with bones or (2) food without bones. Part of food waste without bones is used to feed cattle.

As a result of this policy, if you go to a fast food restaurant or even a coffee bar like Starbucks, there are a few garbage baskets installed for diners to sort their garbage. Since I don’t understand Korean, I always have to look into each basket to learn which one I should throw my garbage in, a process that’s not fun.

You may guess there must be a lot of garbage tracks running around to remove lots of different kinds of waste.  Wrong.  Garbage is disposed through underground conveyors inside pipelines with compression and dehydration methods. So no garbage tracks are required in Songdo. Cool, isn’t it?

Water is also recycled. A sewage recycling system, which is probably one of the largest in the world, has been installed. This will help with reusing nearly 40% of waste water.

Following from these recycling efforts, last October, after an intense competition with cities from Mexico and Germany, Songdo was selected to host the UN’s GCF (Global Climate Fund). GCF is opening its headquarters in Songdo sometime soon.

So as you can see, Songdo is a very GREEN city. Mayor Bloomberg, please come over to experience it. If you buy me a glass of wine, I might give you some garbage-recycling insider information.

What do you think of Songdo’s waste policy? Please share your thoughts!

For more Information on Songdo’s sustainability effort, check out Songdo’s sustainable city site.

<About Our Guest Blogger>

Akiko Ono Mueller is originally from Tokyo and based in New York city. Currently she’s living in Songdo, South Korea with her family and working for Songdo Global University Foundation as Director of International Marketing. She has BA from Waseda University (Tokyo) and MS from New York University.