Beneath
Two blue crates packed with rinsed, flattened milk cartons collected from cafés.

Our story

We started Beneath in 2024, in Chungpa-dong, Seoul.

Waste doesn’t disappear when we throw it away. Someone has to deal with it, and that burden usually lands on the communities that produced the least of it. That’s what we mean by climate inequality.

So we decided to start where waste is thrown out. We collect paper cartons and coffee grounds from cafés across Seoul, work with recycling partners to process them, and turn them into things people actually use.

What a neighbourhood throws away, we bring back to help that neighbourhood.

A street in Chungpa-dong on the collection route: volunteers walking with bags past the shopfronts.

What we do

Addressing climate inequality by reimagining discarded materials as valuable resources, bridging environmental sustainability and social equity through collaboration.

We collect cartons from cafés, get them recycled into tissue, and hand it back to households in the same neighbourhood. We’re building a cycle that each neighbourhood can eventually run on its own.

Our impact

Every week, our volunteers walk two routes through Chungpa-dong and Yeonhui-dong, collecting cartons from our partner cafés. These are our numbers since 2024, counted carton by carton.

18,144
  • Total weight collected604.5 kg
  • Cartons collected from Chungpa-dong, Yongsan-gu16,696556.3 kg
  • Cartons collected from Yeonhui-dong, Seodaemun-gu1,44848.2 kg
  • Number of cafés partnered23
  • Recycled tissue rolls227
  • Trees saved1,500 cartons = 1 tree13
  • Collecting since2024

Get involved

A volunteer holding open a Beneath collection bag at a café counter.

Volunteer

[ Weekly ]Chungpa · Yeonhui

Walk a weekly route with us and collect cartons from partner cafés.

Collect / Sort / Record

Join the team

A café owner handing a bag of rinsed cartons across the counter.

Collaborate

[ Partners ]17 so far

Bring carton collection to your district, school or company.

Governments / Nonprofits / Schools / Companies

Partner with us

A crate of rinsed cartons waiting to be weighed.

Educate

[ Workshops ]On request

We train café staff to rinse and sort cartons properly.

For partner cafés

Request a workshop

How our cycle works

  1. 01

    Collect

    Every week, our volunteers pick up rinsed cartons from 23 partner cafés in Chungpa-dong and Yeonhui-dong.

  2. 02

    Recycle

    Our recycling partners turn the cartons into pulp, and the pulp into tissue paper.

  3. 03

    Distribute

    We give the tissue to households in the neighbourhood the cartons came from.

And the next week, we start again.

Follow us on Instagram

@_.beneath New posts every week