World Environment Day & Korea’s Unique Waste Sorting System for the Environment!

It is ‘Environment Day’ on June 5th that is designated by the United Nations at the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. During its first conference in 1972, the global society decided to work together to preserve the environment and established World Environment Day.

 


As climate change and the impacts have been getting serious due to environmental pollution, the world has been attempting various schemes to cooperate for the environment. One of them is called a carbon tax. The tax is a few imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels and it is now implemented in 50 different countries in the world including Swiss and Sweden. Korea also announced a ‘2050 Net-zero’ pledge and is actively discussing to enact related legislation.

 

However, many Korean companies are hugely dependent on the export of products emitting a great deal of carbon such as cars, steels, and oil chemicals. In addition to the increased cost of CER (Certificated Emissions Reduction) and introduction of the carbon tax, a carbon border tax is additionally discussed and experts insist that Government needs to prepare detailed and advanced countermeasure to help these industries.

 

As mentioned above, the world moves vigorously for resource circulation to preserve both the environment and industries and it must be a time for us to think about what we can do for the environment. We believe appropriate waste sorting and disposal can be one of the answers. Celebrating this year’s World Environment Day, rePAPER studied unique waste sorting strategies that have been presented by each local government in Korea.

 

Special waste sorting policy in Korean local governments!

1) Seoul-si: Citizen campaign, ‘Pandemic garbage handled by myself – season 2’


To raise public awareness on the waste issue, Seoul-si is delivering information about waste sorting by webtoons and animations with campaign characters named Meokggabi. The city is planning to publish 10 episodes from April to July, telling the correct ways to separate recyclable waste and bring people’s attention and participation with a number of events.

 

2) Suwon-si: An intensive action to settle proper waste sorting culture

Suwon-si is one of the cities to take intensive action to establish proper waste sorting culture.

<Suwon-si’s waste rejection sticker>

 In fact, the city recently banned two towns from discharging flammable waste for 3 days for violating the rule. It is intriguing to find out if this rigorous policy may result in establishing the right waste sorting system. In addition, Suwon-si set up a separate collection point called ‘Eco Station’ near residential areas and markets. The place collects 6 different recyclable waste and a manager stays at the place and helps citizens to sort household and recyclable waste correctly.


3) Incheon-si: A pilot project for recycling toys

Incheon-si announced to start a pilot project, in cooperation with Korea Environment Corporation and Korea Plastic Single Material Association, to recycle discarded toys and recycle them by the end of this year.

 

<Incheon-si website>

Experts estimated about 6,660 tons of toys are produced by major toy manufacturers and a lot more are disposed of every year. The pilot project is anticipated to bring the single material trend in toy industries as well.

 

4) Jecheon-si: Specific policy for an instant ice pack disposal


The use of ice packs has been exceedingly growing up due to the increased demands of fresh food delivery after COVID19. However, most of them need to be incinerated due to the polymer refrigerant gel inside and it concerns local governments because of the environmental issue. But Jecheon-si came up with a brilliant environment-friendly way to solve it! The city set up a separate collector for ice packs in around 60 apartment complexes in the city and send the recovered products to stores that want to reuse them after cleaning. Jecheon asked not to print brand names on the ice packs to make it easier to reuse. It shows the city’s effort and sincerity to circulate the product that could have been dumped after single-use

 

5) Jeju-do: Operate consistent and systematic Clean House

<Jeju special self-governing province>

Jeju Island implemented ‘Daily recyclable waste discharging system’ in 2017. In Jeju, people sort their waste by its material and discharge each on an assigned day at the designated place called Clean House. In order to minimize people’s inconvenience, 2-3 more days are assigned to dispose of the waste that is generated the most such as plastics, papers, and plastic bags. For places where many people gather, there is a separate place called ‘Recycling Assistant Center’ where people may discard waste at any time.

 

Furthermore, Jeju-do is planning to conduct a survey to find out how well the citizens are participating in waste sorting and to seek for improvement to operate clean house more effectively. They seem to try hard to preserve the beautiful environment considering their special condition as an island.

 

Active Waste Sorting and Use of Environment-friendly Material for Resource Circulation!

Korea implemented a waste sorting policy as early as 1995 and is now known to be an advanced country with strict regulations on how to treat waste. As a result, the waste sorting rate reaches 87.1% in 2019.

 

However, there is still struggling in some residential areas and farming and fishing villages compared with urban areas where proper sorting spots and systems are equipped. If you live in a house, not an apartment complex, you need to sort waste by each material, put it in a separate bag, and place them in front of your house. As it is not mandatory to set up a waste sorting facility and is not practically possible to examine each area, some locals find it challenging about handling the waste.

 

Above all, it is absolutely necessary for every member of a society to understand the importance of the correct waste sorting and to participate actively in order to secure high-quality raw material through a recycling process. On the other hand, there is a great gap between the waste sorting rate and the actual recycling rate. For example, the sorting rate of plastic material in Korea reaches about 60%, but its recyclability rate is only 23%. It’s because there aren’t many materials to be recycled due to mix disposal and contamination.

 

Separate Sorting System for Transparent PET bottles


Recently, 6 local governments including Seoul, Busan, Cheonan, Gimhae, Jeju, and Seoqwipo recognized the problem and started a pilot project to sort and collect a transparent PET bottle for complete recycling. The companies such as Hyosung T&C, Black Yak, Pleatsmama released the products which are made of recycled fibers from recycling these discarded PET bottles, setting as a good example of raising people’s awareness and expanding the use of recycled materials.

 

In order to become a real environment-friendly country, we must have a proper waste sorting system and minimize the use of composite materials which decreases recyclability. In addition, the government should encourage industries to switch to an environmentally friendly material that is not only recyclable but also home compostable. Moreover, we can evaluate successful pilot projects in a more integrated and systematic way to find out the best strategies for the environment.

 

rePAPER keeps supporting to recover Korea’s green ecosystem by developing the environment-friendly coating solution with many partners pursuing the same goal!


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