Food Waste and Banchan

Generosity is built into the Korean table. A meal arrives with many small dishes, refills are offered freely in restaurants, and a host would rather put out too much than too little. The flip side is leftovers. Korea has developed one of the world's most closely watched systems for collecting and recycling food waste, and the habits around banchan are part of the story.

Why banchan matters

Shared side dishes are set out before anyone knows how much each will be eaten. At home, a little of each dish goes back into the refrigerator, and a little ends up discarded. In restaurants the rule is stricter: since 2009, revised regulations under Korea's Food Sanitation Act have barred restaurants from reusing food that customers leave behind, so untouched banchan returned to the kitchen must be thrown away. See sharing banchan.

A 2022 study in Heliyon on household food waste in Korea notes that Koreans have been estimated to produce more food waste per person than North Americans or Europeans, and cites the suggestion that the custom of side dishes, which are often discarded when left over, may be one reason. The same authors stress that reliable household statistics are scarce, so such comparisons should be read cautiously.

How the system took shape

• 1995: Korea introduced a volume-based fee for household rubbish, sold as designated bags, so people pay for what they throw away.
• 2005: Direct landfilling of food waste was banned nationwide, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and food waste was collected separately.
• 2013: Discharging the liquid squeezed from food waste into the sea was banned from January, adding pressure on processing on land. The same year, charging households by the amount of food waste they discard was rolled out nationwide.

Households pay in one of several ways, depending on where they live: designated food waste bags, prepaid stickers on collection bins, or bins fitted with radio-frequency identification (RFID) that weigh each deposit and bill the household. A 2023 report in Korea's Environmental Daily counted about 129,000 RFID units across 176 local governments.

Did it work?

Seoul reported that household food waste in its 25 districts fell from 2,197 tons a day in the first half of 2012 to 1,978 tons in the same period of 2013, after the volume-based system went city-wide, and an Asian Development Bank explainer on Seoul's experience cites a 14 percent reduction. Critics point out that fees remain low relative to processing costs, which may blunt the incentive to throw away less.

Where it goes

Separately collected food waste is processed rather than buried. For years it was turned mainly into animal feed and compost, which agriculture could use. Officials have more recently shifted emphasis toward biogas: anaerobic digestion, in which microbes break down food waste in sealed tanks to produce methane that can be burned for energy. The Ministry of Environment has set a goal of greatly expanding biogas production from organic waste.

Wasting less at home

• Serve small, refill often: Put out modest portions from the storage container and top up rather than filling the plate. Leftovers that never touched the table can go back in the refrigerator.
• Use clean utensils: Banchan served with clean chopsticks keeps longer. See food safety at home.
• Cook for the week: Make fewer banchan in a batch and rotate them, rather than many at once.
• Give sour kimchi a second life: Over-ripe kimchi is the classic base for kimchi-jjigae, kimchi-jeon and kimchi-bokkeumbap.
• Repurpose the rest: Leftover namul can go into bibimbap or gimbap; radish and cabbage trimmings can be dried, like siraegi, or simmered into stock. See making yuksu broth and drying and rehydrating vegetables.
• Freeze before it fades: Many braised and stir-fried banchan freeze reasonably well in small portions.

Wasting less when eating out

• Say what you will not eat: It is acceptable to decline a banchan you know you will leave untouched.
• Ask for refills rather than doubles: Start with what arrives and ask for more of the dishes you actually finish.
• Share mains thoughtfully: Order for the table and add more if needed. See eating out at Korean restaurants.