The one about garbage bins

Back in the States, I always just dumped my food waste in with my regular household waste, but here in Korea, they use these little buckets for food waste.  The lining is slatted to allow liquid waste to pass through so you can dispose of it in the waste water system and the solid food waste you can... well, I really don't know what to do with the solid food waste.  Some apartment houses have special containers out near the trash collection area just for food waste, but our apartment house doesn't have that, so I end up draining my food waste and simply tossing it in with the regular trash much as I have always done my whole life.

The other day the old lady who, with her elderly husband, kind of acts as the overseer of the building came ringing my doorbell at 8:30 in the morning.  I usually don't answer the door at 8:30 since I'm more than likely still in my underwear.  Each apartment has a video camera on the doorbell; I looked at the monitor and saw it was the old lady, so I slipped on some pants and answered the door.  She stood there telling me about these garbage buckets and something something "go bring you one" something something.  I couldn't really understand what she was saying, but I think the gist was "if you need one of these buckets [she was holding one up for me to see] I'll go and get you one."  She can hardly get up and down the stairs here, so I might have gotten mixed up on that bit.  She might have been telling me to go get one.  However, I already have one, but I don't know what more to do with it. There is a special truck that comes by and empties these garbage containers at buildings that have them, but since our building doesn't have one, I'm not sure what to do.  Should I just take my little bin out there and hope nobody steals it?  Who would steal a garbage bin? You never know, but these 2-dollar bins are small enough to walk off with unnoticed.

It's a good idea to separate food garbage from regular trash.  It keeps down vermin and the collected material can be used for composting.  I'm sure the collectors earn money from farmers for most if not all of it.  Maybe I'll start investigating this more, though not sure anyone in my building will understand me. I can order food in a restaurant and go shopping, use taxis, and read most posted signs around town, but my Korean language skills are abysmal for getting spoken information.  Maybe I need to try anyway, just because it's the right thing to do.  Isn't it funny how something as mundane as garbage can compel us to change the way we think?