Separate discharge mats distributed by the Ministry of Environment (Image = Ministry of Environment)From December 25 this year, the Ministry of Environment has implemented’separate disposal of transparent PET bottles’ in apartments nationwide, and is strengthening cooperation with the industry to recycle recycled PET into high-quality products such as clothes, bags, and shoes.
The Ministry of Environment banned colored PET bottles in drinking and drinking spring water in December of last year, and allowed drinking spring water without a brand name from December this year. From June this year, a ban on the import of waste PET is in effect.
In addition, along with the’Separate Disposal of Transparent PET Bottles’, the Ministry of Environment is promoting the establishment of a collection system by distributing dedicated sacks, improving facilities in the related recycling industry, expanding demand for recycled PET, and diversifying recycled PET products. We aim to improve all stages of the PET recycling system.
The’Separate Discharge of Transparent PET Bottles’ is implemented for apartments subject to compulsory management under the’Community Housing Act’, and the Ministry of Environment is able to put separate transparent PET bottles in apartments and related companies nationwide in December so that separate discharge can be settled quickly. About 50,000 pieces of sacks were distributed to the site.
Since November of this year, a joint situation group with related organizations in charge of separate and separate dispensing of transparent PET bottles is being operated, and 10,000 sheets in December and 30,000 additional sheets in early next year are scheduled to be distributed to apartments that are not distributed or need additional sacks.
Afterwards, intensive checks are made on whether or not horses are installed on the site until January of next year, and a settlement period is operated until June to check the discharge status of each local government every month and discover system supplements.
The discharged transparent PET bottles are recycled through collection companies, sorting companies, and recycling companies, and high-quality recycled PET is expected to be produced by improving facilities in which transparent PET bottles are separately managed by sorting and recycling companies.
In order to settle the separate dispensing of transparent PET bottles, we will strengthen cooperation not only with recycling-related industries, but also with industries that produce and distribute PET.
It promotes the public with 21 distributors and beverage and bottled water producers so that people can easily learn how to separate and dispose of transparent PET bottles in everyday life.
In consultation with domestic manufacturers, the Ministry of Environment replaces new domestic raw materials with recycled raw materials according to the characteristics of the industry, such as retailers’ self-developed products (PB), long fibers in the clothing industry, and packaging containers for automobiles and electronic products, and collaborates with domestic raw material production industries. It is also actively exploring overseas direct export channels of recycled raw materials. For companies that use recycled raw materials, the producer’s responsibility for recycling contributions will be reduced, and the industry and product types using recycled raw materials will be expanded.
In cooperation with the industry, the Ministry of Environment decided to diversify the use of recycling into long fibers and PET bottles used in clothes, bags, and shoes, as well as cotton and egg plates for clothes that were mainly recycled.
Recently, clothing companies such as Black Yak, Plitzmama, Kolon, and cosmetics companies such as AMOREPACIFIC have made and sold clothes, bags, and body cleaner (body wash) containers with domestic transparent PET bottles collected through a pilot project conducted in February this year. .
Public institutions such as the Ministry of Environment, Korea Water Resources Corporation, Korea Environment Corporation, and the National Institute of Ecology are expanding their use by purchasing clothing recycled from domestic PET bottles as group clothes.
From February of this year, the Ministry of Environment has conducted a pilot project to separate and dispose of transparent PET bottles separately for some detached housing areas and apartment houses in six areas in Seoul, Busan, Cheonan, Gimhae, Jeju, and Seogwipo, and in Jeju, clothing and bags, and cosmetic bottles in Cheonan. It also succeeded in commercialization.
The Ministry of Environment expanded the recycling of high-quality recycled PET from 28,000 tons per year in 2019 (11% of the total recycled amount of 240,000 tons) to more than 100,000 tons in 2022 by separating and discharging transparent PET bottles, sufficient to replace the currently imported recycled PET in Korea. I plan to do it.
Meanwhile, recycled PET producers recently received Global Recycled Standard (GRS) for some of their products, and the products are marked as recycled products by company. The Ministry of Environment is planning to introduce a certification system that can officially check whether or not recycled raw materials are used in the future and mark them on products.
In general, plastics such as PET extract naphtha (raw material grains) from petroleum, classify them by material, and melt them to make molded products.The recycling process is to make the raw materials by melting them after crushing the collected transparent PET bottles by inverting them. .
In this process, the lower the content of foreign substances and the higher the purity, the higher the quality of recycling, so citizen participation is essential.
Hong Dong-gon, the Ministry of Environment’s Resource Recycling Policy Officer, said, “We will foster the recycling industry so that we can lead the global expansion of the renewable raw material market through the smooth establishment of separate and separate discharge of transparent PET bottles in apartment houses nationwide.”
“We ask for the active interest and participation of the people so that the separate and separate discharge of transparent PET bottles can be settled well.”