SEBAU Campaign Began Its Second Sail Towards Resource Circulation!

 



SEBAU Campaign is back! Jeju Olle announced another start of “Eco&Life, We Change The World – shortened as SEBAU in Korean’ this month. The Campaign organized by Seoul Economic Daily and Jeju Olle is an engagement campaign pursuing the resource circulation from production, consumption to recycling through the use of environment-friendly product.

 

SEBAU Campaign, The Beginning of Resource Circulation Together

Jeju, a beautiful treasure island, is one of the most well-known tourist attractions in Korea that over 1.6 million tourists visit annually. However, it has been struggling with the increased amount of waste in proportion to the growing number of tourists. In order to help this troubled Jeju Island, SEBAU campaign was organized suggesting a more sustainable way.

The 1st SEBAU started in May last year with 65 cafes located around Olle trails. They mandatorily use a reusable cup for in-store customers and provide a drink in the SEBAU Eco-friendly Cup made of rePAPER’s coated board for take-out. The post-consumer cups are collected and sent to a paper mill and become recycled into toilet issues or napkins.

It drew positive feedbacks from the joined café and customers. The cafés were recognized as environment-conscious stores and attracted green consumers. The customers were able to participate the campaign easily that can protect Jeju Island’s beauty.

Yet, the first SEBAU campaign Towards complete resource circulation had a few complements.



According to the report released by Jeju Olle, it is recorded that 359,350 SEBAU cups were provided during the last 10 months and 9.0% of them were collected. Considering the fact that the recovery rate of conventional paper cups is only 1.5% due to the plastic lining inside, it seems that SEBAU campaign achieved some remarkable success with a 6-times high recycling rate.

However, the amount of collected cups weighs only about 0.45t as the used amount was not much in the first place. Therefore, at least 40 – 50 percent of the used cups should be collected in order to have meaningful figures for recycling.

As completing the cycle of resource circulation was one of the biggest goals in this campaign, the low collecting rate remains a task to be solved. Then, what could have affected the figure?

First of all, SEBAU cup’s own design was not preferable by some owners as it is difficult to promote each café’s uniqueness. Second, most of the customers at these joined cafes are tourists that they usually go to the sights or accommodation. The problem is that there were not many of collecting bins for them to return the cups off Olle trails.

It was also a shame that we couldn’t check the details how the recovered products became resource for new products. This is why it is necessary to have thorough understanding and management for the entire circulation system.

 

SEBAU Campaign, How Is It Going To Be Different in 2020?

The 2nd SEBAU Campaign starting this May is expected to be more active and more significant. It’s because Jeju Olle and Seoul Economic Daily is planning to apply some great improvement the campaign from last year.

They will increase the number of joined cafes and expand Jeju Olle Information Centers from 7 to 15 places where people can return the used cups. Jeju Air ports and Jeju ports as well as other famous attractions will also be added to as returning places so that people can more conveniently participate the campaign.

In addition, other ideas are discussed, too, to increase the participation such as printing the QR code on the cup that shows the returning places or promoting SNS events. The organizers target to increase the recovery rate to 20% and they believe it would be achievable as the environmental awareness is growing and people are willing to be involved.

Most of all, it is most important to have the participants and related institutions’ deep interest and active cooperation to draw success in terms of resource circulation. If the consumption of environmentally friendly product is increased, the value of recovery and recycling can be expanded, too.

Since the food packaging is made with 100% virgin pulp, it can be a good raw material to produce high quality pulp if properly recycled. Seoul Daily Economic, Jeju Olle started the SEBAU campaign with the supports from rePAPER, Hansol Paper, the Ministry of Environment, Jeju Island, Korea Tourism Organization, Korea Consumer Agency, in order to lead resource circulation that cannot be implemented with a regular plastic-coated product and we believe this will trigger a genuine sustainable system in the world. SEBAU campaign waits for you who cares for the environment in this beautiful treasure island Jeju!

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