New York has a food waste problem. South Korea has already solved it

South Korea has cut household food waste going to landfill from 97% to almost nothing. New York City has started sending its scraps the same way.

On a Saturday afternoon in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea, Seunghwan Hong collects the week's vegetable trimmings, leftover rice and fruit peel, and heads downstairs to the food waste disposal unit in his apartment complex. He taps his card on the scanner, the lid pops up, the weight of the scraps is displayed, and a charge is added to his household account.

The transaction takes less than a minute. But behind it lies one of the most ambitious waste management experiments in the world.

South Korea has gone further than any other country in committing to solve the problem of household food waste. Today, New York is taking its first steps toward replicating its success.

South Korea's 30-year waste transformation

Food waste is an almost universal problem in developed countries. In the US, a family of four wastes around $56 a week (£42) in discarded food. Globally, more than a billion tonnes of food is wasted each year, making up 10% of the world's climate-warming emissions.

South Korea's answer was sparked by a waste crisis driven by rapid urbanisation in the 20th Century. Landfill and sanitation issues abounded where food scraps were discarded with general waste.

The cumulative effect of the changes to the country's food waste management since the 1990s (see below) has been remarkable: South Korea's food waste recycling rate rose from just 2.6% in 1996 to nearly 97% in 2023.

How South Korea got to almost-zero food waste

In 1995, the South Korean government introduces a volume-based waste fee

In 1997, food waste separation is made mandatory

In 2005, the government bans food waste from landfill altogether

In 2010, a pilot programme introduces smart bins

In 2013, the government prohibits dumping food waste leachate (the liquid released from food scraps) into the ocean

One of the most visible changes to residents has been the smart bins, like the one Hong uses for his weekly scraps, enabled with RFID (radio-frequency identification) scanners. Government figures for 2025 show 151,934 smart bins in use across the country, serving over 8.61 million households.

"Seeing the weight and the cost of my food waste made me more aware of how much I am throwing away," says Hong.

Not only does this cut emissions from household food going to landfill, but these scraps can become a source of energy and reduce the need for fossil fuels.

What happens to South Korea's food waste

Hong's food scraps, and those of millions like him, are among those that reach an energy facility that turns the waste into power.

It's a more climate-friendly answer than landfill. When organic waste is buried in landfill, it breaks down without oxygen and releases methane, a greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide over a 20-year........

© BBC