District office in Busan on 'garbage strike'

By Lee Kyung-min

A district office in Busan is refusing to collect garbage from a popular street in its jurisdiction in a desperate bid to raise public awareness of trash dumping.

According to the Jin District Office, it has not cleaned up garbage in Seomyeon, a street of bars, restaurants and clubs, since Sunday, and the “strike” will continue until 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Officials there said the three-day strike is a desperate effort to make the street clean as garbage dumping remains rampant despite its campaign to curb the problem.

The district office held a similar one-day strike in September 2012.

The measure drew both positive and negative responses from residents.

While some said the sight of heaped trash brought shame to those who improperly dump their garbage, others said it only further tarnishes the district’s reputation for outsiders who do not know the intended objective.

“First, I thought it was just disgusting. But when I heard it was because people kept throwing the trash despite the cleaning effort, I thought twice about how I have mindlessly thrown the trash on streets,” a resident in the city said.

However, a restaurant owner said the measure was not an effective way to solve the chronic problem.

“The amount of street trash might decrease, maybe. But that is not an effective solution to the problem. The government should come up with heavy fines or punishment of some sort,” the owner said.

The problem is largely attributed to lax government regulation.

Under the law, those who throw away cigarette butts or trash packed in plastic bags on streets are fined 30,000 won ($26) and 200,000 won respectively.

However, perpetrators are rarely caught for their illegal acts, because there are only a few street patrols and not enough surveillance cameras, officials said.

Following citizens’ complaints, the district plans to introduce measures to better deal with the situation.