Beneath

Earth Volunteer Team

Every week, we collect used paper cartons from cafés and make sure they get recycled. Come walk a route with us.

Join the team See the routes

Most of our work is done by the Earth Volunteer Team, a group of volunteers who go café to café collecting used paper cartons.

Right now we run two routes: Chungpa-dong in Yongsan-gu and Yeonhui-dong in Seodaemun-gu.

We started in Chungpa-dong and began recruiting volunteers in March 2026. In May 2026 we added a second route in Yeonhui-dong. Anyone can join, and we collect every week on both routes.

A volunteer holding open a Beneath collection bag at a café counter while a barista hands over a used carton.
Volunteers walking down a narrow sunlit alley with collection bags.
Two volunteers in masks carrying collection bags through a café corridor.
Volunteers carrying collection bags of used cartons along a Chungpa-dong street.

Our two collection sites

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

Chungpa-dong

  • Collection 12:45 – 1:30
  • Every week

Where we started. Volunteers collect from 14 cafés on this route.

  • Cartons collected16,696
  • Weight collected556.3 kg
Join the Chungpa-dong route
Yeonhui-dong from above: the streets and rooftops of the collection route.Seodaemun-gu

Yeonhui-dong

  • Collection 3:00 – 5:00
  • Every week

Our second route, added in May 2026. 9 cafés take part.

  • Cartons collected1,448
  • Weight collected48.2 kg
Join the Yeonhui-dong route

Our numbers
so far

We go to each café in person to pick up its cartons. Without that step, most of them would go out with the general waste.

Volunteers gathered outside a Seoul café with collection bags on a pickup morning.

Why we collect from cafés

Cafés go through a lot of milk, so they throw away a lot of cartons.

Cartons are worth recycling, but they usually get mixed in with other paper or thrown out as general waste. A café produces so many in one place that it’s one of the easiest places to collect them.

Email us to volunteer