Food waste being separated from plastic bags at the Goyang facility.

How South Korea Puts Its Food Scraps to Good Use

When wasted food rots in landfills, it pollutes soil and water — and warms the planet. Here’s how one country keeps that from happening.

Around the world, most of the 1.4 billion tons of food thrown away each year goes to landfills. As it rots, it pollutes water and soil and releases huge amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

But not in South Korea, which banned food scraps from its landfills almost 20 years ago. Here, the vast majority of it gets turned into animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for heating homes.

Food waste is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, not only because of the methane but also because the energy and resources that went into its production and transport have been wasted, too.

The system in South Korea, which keeps about 90 percent of discarded food out of landfills and incinerators, has been studied by governments around the world. Officials from China, Denmark and elsewhere have toured South Korea’s facilities. New York City, which will require all residents to separate their food waste from other trash by next fall, has been observing the Korean system for years, a spokesman for the city’s sanitation department said.

While a number of cities have comparable programs, few if any other countries do what South Korea does on a national scale. That is because of the cost, said Paul West, a senior scientist with Project Drawdown, a research group that studies ways to reduce carbon emissions. Although individuals and businesses pay a small fee to discard food waste, the program costs South Korea about $600 million a year, according to the country’s Ministry of Environment.

Nonetheless, Mr. West and other experts say it should be emulated. “The South Korea example makes it possible to reduce emissions at a larger scale,” he said…