The reporter of the main station looks at the world! Hello everyone, I am Zhang Yun, a reporter from the headquarters in South Korea.
The world discards 1.4 billion tonnes of food each year, most of which ends up in landfills. This not only adversely affects the environment, but also exacerbates problems such as hunger and resource depletion. According to data released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about one-third of the world's food is discarded every year. South Korea banned the landfill treatment of food waste as early as 2005, and carried out a series of treatment and reuse of food waste. The first thing foreigners who are new to Korea need to learn is to sort garbage and when to discard what kind of garbage.
South Korea divides garbage into kitchen waste, recyclable waste and non-recyclable waste. Among them, kitchen waste and non-recyclable waste need to be stored in special garbage bags, which have different prices according to different sizes, for example, 20 liters of kitchen waste bags cost 2800 won (about 16 yuan). In other words, both kitchen waste and non-recyclable waste need to be disposed of according to the meter. Most of the non-recyclable waste is sent to landfill, what happens to kitchen waste?
Special garbage bags for kitchen waste (Photo by reporter Zhang Yun)
Traditional Korean cuisine tends to produce a lot of leftover food. Because the small side dishes of general Korean food are as few as a few or as a dozen, few people can eat all the side dishes. In addition, most of the traditional Korean food is mainly stewed, and the kitchen waste generated is often carried with soup and soup water. This means that the food waste produced is larger and smells heavier. Not only that, because the human diet contains a lot of salt, if food waste is disposed of in landfills, it means that the soil will be salinized and can no longer be cultivated. This is a huge waste that South Korea, which already lacks arable land.
In South Korea, the vast majority of food waste is converted into animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for home heating. According to the Ministry of Environment, although ordinary residents and businesses will pay some fees to dispose of food waste, the South Korean government still needs to spend about 600 million US dollars a year to dispose of food waste.
In order to reduce food waste, some communities in South Korea have introduced metered food waste disposal machines (Photo by reporter Zhang Yun)
To dispose of food waste, hundreds of treatment plants have been set up across local governments in South Korea. In some food waste treatment plants, waste food is sent to a grinder to be crushed into small pieces, then baked and dehydrated. The water separated from the food waste is piped to the water treatment plant, part of which is used to produce biogas, and the rest is purified and discharged into a nearby stream. After about four hours of processing, the food waste is eventually processed into a dry brown powder at the treatment plant, which is rich in protein and fiber and can be used as a feed supplement for poultry, which the treatment plant sends to willing poultry farms.
After dehydration and drying, kitchen waste is made into poultry feed (Photo by reporter Zhang Yun)
There are also some food waste treatment plants that carry out anaerobic treatment of food waste, which is to place food waste in large containers for 35 days, allowing bacteria to break down the organic matter in the food and produce biogas, after which this biogas can become the daily use of tens of millions of households. The remaining solid matter will be mixed with wood chips to make fertilizer and distribute it to farmers in need.
Researchers in South Korea found that every ton of food waste emits greenhouse gases equivalent to 360 kilograms of carbon dioxide after decay, and disposing of food waste will obviously help humans save energy and reduce emissions. But many critics in South Korea point out that even if food waste disposal is clean, efficient and environmentally friendly, the root cause is still huge waste of people. We should make everyone aware of the dangers of wasting food, cherish every grain, and reduce food waste in order to create a better living environment and protect our earth.
The above is the observation of Zhang Yun, a reporter from Seoul.
The author of this issue of "The Headroom Reporter Sees the World" is Zhang Yun, a reporter from the headquarters stationed in South Korea
(From the Voice of China column "Main Station Reporter Sees the World")
Executive producer丨Wang Qiaoling
Reporter丨Zhang Yun
Editor丨 Yang Bo
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