A Greenhouse Research Talk by Hyunah Keum, Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy/Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
It becamecompletely worn-out and obsolete due to residents' decision not to use it any more a few years ago (c) Hyunah Keum
In the late 1990s, a technological system called “Auto Clean Net (ACN)” was first installed at a residential building in Seoul Metropolitan area of South Korea. Since then, numerous newly constructed urban residential areas have started to adopt the system to smarten and automate the collection of general and food waste through underground vacuum pipelines. However, does it really enable automation and cleanness in waste collection? By exploring the contrast between the promise and reality of the ACN system, this research situates it at the extension of the Korean government’s efforts to display clean, modern, and technologically intensive infrastructures while concealing dirty, unwanted, and manual processes, which inherently require constant maintenance.
Hyunah Keum (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy/Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). She is interested in expertise and infrastructures to enable different practices around waste. Her concentration is STS, Environmental History, along with Discard Studies and Disaster Studies.