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We can easily spot ‘biodegradable’ products anywhere these days. Due to the climate change and the pandemic resulted from the pollution, environment-friendly property of a product has influenced a customer’s purchase decision more than ever. Generally, the word ‘biodegrade’ means that a material is degraded or decomposed by microbes such as molds or bacteria. Paper, woods, flowers, fruits, and fish shall be the most common examples as biodegradable materials. However, did you know that a plastic cup, a diaper, and even metal can be degradable, too? The only problem would be that it takes decades or even centuries to be so. Although corrosion by light, wind, or water is also a part of decomposition, today we will focus on materials’ degradability occurred by temperature, oxygen, and microbes. First, let’s find out what these two familiar, but confusing words, ‘biodegradable’ and ‘compostable’ exactly mean! The Difference Between Degradable and Compostable As the environmental awaren...

  On July 31 st , the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) identified certain types of PFAS to be highly hazardous and decided to phase out the production and use of the material in the US. Let’s find out why the organization disapproves PFAS and a safe food packaging alternative rePAPER suggests. “Forever Chemical” PFAS, Accumulated in Our Bodies PFCs (Poly- and Per-fluorinated Compounds) refer to the group of materials which their hydrogen in hydrocarbon is substituted to fluorine. Among PFCs, PFAS(Per– and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) has been widely used from the surface coating for cookware, surgical gowns and drapes, cell phones, semiconductor, low-emission vehicles, clothing, furniture to fast food and take-out food packaging. However, certain types of PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS had already been banned in the US market due to their notorious effects on humans, causing hormone changes, increased cholesterol, weakened the immune system, certain types of cancer and low birt...

  On June 18th, distributors and consumers were put in a great confusion. Articles were released saying the Repackaging Ban starting from the following month practically means that the Government would forbid discount promotions such as “Buy one, get one free”. The article bitterly criticized that the Korean would be the first country to ban on bundle discount in the world. Let’s keep reading to see what this controversial law exactly is and the true intention for it!   Why Ban on Repackaging? The repackaging ban law is to prohibit distributors from selling products after re-packaging. Packaging is primarily used to prevent a product from being destroyed or lost and to deliver a product’s information to a customer. As the excessive packaging has become a popular marketing form, however, the amount of waste has been soaring up. In order to resolve the waste issue, the Ministry of Environment carried forward the measures to prevent excessive packaging on January 14 th thi...

The largest international environmental film festival in Asia, Seoul International Eco Film Festival – hereinafter SEFF, has introduced outstanding global environmental films. Since its launch in 2004, the festival has been served as a place where people look for the ways for coexistence of the environment and human beings and discuss potential solutions and the acts required for the future. Let’s take an example of the film <Plastic China> that won the Green Competition Best Feature Film at the 15th SEFF in 2017. This film was known to trigger China’s ban on recyclable waste imports and even to affect the <Act on the Promotion of saving and recycling of resources> in Korea in 2018. This movie is about the environment polluted by our reckless consumption and dispose of single-use plastic packaging and how it is closely connected with people’s lives. It criticizes human being’s indiscreet consumption on resource in the name of convenience and how seriously the pollution ha...

  Have you heard of the movie, “Dark Waters”? Inspired by a true story, the movie talks about how dangerous PFCs(Per- and polyfluoro compounds) could be. It starts with 190 milk cows dying around the town where one of the major chemical manufacturing companies, DuPont, is located. People suffer from diseases for no apparent reason. Later, it turns out that they are related to PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic Acid), a harmful kind of PFCs, secretly released from the plant. Finding out the truth, Robert Bilott, an attorney of the case, started to fight for the case for 20 years since 1998 and finally had DuPont make reparations of $671 million.   PFCs(fluoropolymer), Carcinogen That Might Be Around Us All the Time PFCs are compounds that all – or some parts- of hydrogen in hydrocarbons are substituted for fluorine. They are used widely from various industry fields such as firefighting foams and cleaning in semiconductor manufacturing plants to consumer products like cookware, food pa...