Over the weekend while at the PX food court, I happened to catch these two janitors.

Sweeping, dusting, wiping down table-tops it was nothing out of the ordinary.

Until the woman picked up an empty cup off a table.

I watched as she signaled the man, asking in Hangul what she should do with it.

She turned the cup up & down, over & back upright to show that it hadn’t even been used.

To her it was a perfectly good clean cup.

But the man was adamant that she add it to the trash – there were health codes they had to abide by.

She fussed back…determined not to throw out the large paper Subway cup.

And I watched as she walked off with it…out of the food court, turning into the janitor’s service room.

I can only assume she put it in her locker so that she could take it home at the end of her shift.

But what struck me was how this one little act was so indicative of rural South Korea.

Nothing is thrown out that hasn’t been used ten times over…literally.

And even then you’ll see Koreans rummaging through the trash – looking for anything that can be reused, recycled or repurposed.

It’s like that everywhere here.

And it reminded me how it’s not like that so much back home.