Gangnam-gu Gives Street Trash Bins a New Look... Solving Mixed Waste Disposal Issues

Gangnam-gu, Seoul (District Mayor Jo Seong-myeong) announced on the 1st that it has applied a new public design to 200 trash bins around Gangnam-daero and Daechi-dong to easily encourage separate waste disposal.

Trash bins installed on Gangnam-daero. Provided by Gangnam-gu.

Gangnam-gu has a total of 974 street trash bins installed at bus stops, crosswalks, and subway entrances, which is the highest number among Seoul's autonomous districts. Each trash bin consists of a pair of general waste bins and recycling bins, but proper separate disposal has not been achieved, resulting in ongoing mixed waste issues.

As a result of investigating the mixed disposal rate in the Seolleung-ro and Teheran-ro areas, it was found that 20-35% of recyclables were mixed in the general waste bins, and 5-15% of general waste was included in the recycling bins. Such mixed waste was rejected at the Gangnam Resource Recovery Facility, causing sanitation workers to frequently perform separation work, which was inconvenient.

To solve this problem, the district redesigned 36 trash bins along Gangnam-daero (Sinsa Station~Nonhyeon Station~Sinnonhyeon Station~Yangjae Station) and 164 bins around Daechi-dong (Seolleung Station~Samseong Station~Hakyeoul Station~Hanti Station). The newly applied design consists of three types, clearly distinguishing the colors of general waste bins and recycling bins to visually encourage separate disposal, unlike before.

On Gangnam-daero, images of various mixed wastes were applied to the general waste bins, and neatly arranged plastic bottle images were applied to the recycling bins. On the recycling bins around Daechi-dong, a campaign phrase saying “Let’s participate together to save the Earth” was inserted to encourage participation in separate disposal.

District Mayor Jo Seong-myeong said, “This pilot project is a new attempt to improve the aesthetics of the street environment while establishing a culture of waste separation.” He added, “If the new trash bins are successfully evaluated, we plan to gradually expand their application.”