Why Is North Korea Floating Trash Into South Korea?
A bizarre story of cross-border ballooning
In recent days, balloons have been falling from the sky across South Korea. These sacks of helium are large, slow, fat, and harmless, which has prompted the South Korean military to allow them to float on. Officials fear that firing on the balloons could spark a response from North Korea or escalate a misunderstanding.
Hundreds of such balloons have fallen on South Korean soil, spilling trash, fertilizer, batteries, bottles, and pamphlets. Most of the balloons have fallen in Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces, located on the border between the two rival nations. These trash-filled balloons have originated in North Korea and have become a disgusting symbol of the ongoing propaganda war raging between the North and South.
But why is North Korea sending balloons filled with trash into South Korea? What are they hoping to achieve?
Interestingly enough, this is not the first time that North Korea has resorted to such tactics. From 2016 to 2018, North Korea sent dozens of balloons into South Korea, some filled with human waste. Human waste has been used by North Korea as a show of protest for years. (No human waste has been found in this current batch of balloons.) This latest “attack” is just another in a long line of…
