This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

If you can recognize any piece of classical music, I bet it's this one.

This is Furelease, written by Ludwig Van Beethoven in 1810. Maybe it reminds you

of piano lessons you took when you were a kid. In my town, it was also the song the ice cream truck used to play.

That's producer Avery Trufflement.

But if you live in Taiwan and you hear a truck rumbling down the street playing Fear Elise, it doesn't mean it's time to buy a popsicle.

It means it's time to take out your trash, because this is what a garbage truck in Taiwan

sounds like.

This garbage truck song isn't just supposed to be cute and fun, although it is also supposed to be

cute and fun. The singing garbage trucks are all a part of a completely

different way of thinking about waste disposal. Completely different that is from the way that we think about it in the United States.

In the late 1990s Taiwan recycled only 5% of its waste. Today Taiwan recycles well over half. The country is now among the

world's top recyclers and what changed in this period has a lot to do with the way

that the trash is collected.

Okay, Fioraleis isn't the only song the trucks play. In Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, the trucks also play this song. That's a maiden's prayer, my Polish composer Tecla Barazuska Barinoska.

And in Taipei City, the garbage trucks just alternate between these two songs.

They take turns to play these two songs, two music in Taipei City.

Even the elementary school kids can sing the song. So we are brainwashed.

This is Dr. Jasmine Wong and she grew up in Taipei.

Since I was a child, I knew that every time when the garbage truck comes we were here

da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Now the singing garbage trucks are such a part of

life it's hard to imagine a time before them but that time actually wasn't too long ago.

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