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Trash Sorting Guide

2025-08-30

In our previous column ↓↓↓ we shared all the tips on how to throw away your trash!

https://www.papago-taiwanheya.com/column/detail/73

This time, as a follow-up, we’re going to show you how to sort your trash!

 

 

As shown in the illustration, trash in Taiwan is sorted into three types. There are a lot of details, so we’ve picked out just the parts you’ll likely need. In English, it looks like this:

 

Category Examples
General Trash Paper scraps, toilet paper, diapers, underwear, socks, stuffed toys, disposable chopsticks, etc.
Non-Burnable / Recyclables Pots and pans, supermarket bags, meat trays, milk cartons, bottles, cans, PET bottles, phones, cameras, batteries, magazines, newspapers, etc.
Bulky Trash Refrigerators, TVs, microwaves, washing machines, dryers, etc. (Call the collection service 清潔隊 in advance for pickup.)
Food Waste - For Livestock Partially eaten biscuits or bread, leftover bento meals, soups, etc.
Food Waste - For Fertilizer Vegetable and fruit cores, fish bones, fruit seeds, etc.

To simplify things, trash in Taiwan is generally sorted into four types of bags:

  1. General Trash

  2. Non-Burnable Trash

  3. Food Waste for Livestock

  4. Food Waste for Fertilizer

The sorting isn’t too complicated, so it’s pretty easy! The only tricky part for foreigners might be bulky trash, which requires a phone call. Everything else is straightforward.

Here’s an important point to remember: only General Trash must go into government-designated garbage bags.
For recyclables and food waste, you can use ordinary garbage bags from supermarkets or drugstores. Government-designated bags are much more expensive, so putting recyclables or food waste in them isn’t cost-effective. Of course, the collection service will still pick up your trash even if you use a government bag, so if you’re not worried about the extra cost, that’s fine too.