A cleaning worker in charge of the separate collection of an officetel in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, sighed while looking at the disposable items piled up like a garden in the separate collection area.
As the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) has continued for more than a year, the use of disposable products, mainly plastics, has rapidly increased. 27 days <뉴스1>When I looked around the separate collection site in this residential area in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul, the plastic collection bin was full or overflowing.
Most of the trash spread in front of Mr. A was delivery containers, plastic bags, and parcel boxes. There were chicken and pizza boxes, convenience store lunch boxes, white plastic containers with red water, plastic cups, and bottled water and beverage PET bottles. The plastic containers that had not been cleaned and the plastic containers that had not been removed were also noticeable. To make matters worse, due to the long-standing low oil price, private companies are giving up waste plastic collection and recycling, which accounts for the majority of disposable waste. In the past, it was economical to use waste plastics as recycled raw materials to make new products, but as the price of petroleum, the main raw material of plastics, fell, the reason for creating new products by sorting and processing waste plastics decreased. Mr. Park (53), who runs a junk shop near Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, said, “If you bring plastic to a recycling company from the end of last year, you don’t pay money, but rather we have to pay the disposal cost.” If sorted and discharged well, the cost of sorting will be reduced, so it may be received by the treatment company, but it is not in such a situation that the waste paper is mainly collected.”
In the end, most of the disposable wastes that have grown to be understood as Corona 19 go through a sorting process towards recycling items sorting facilities operated by local governments or private consignment facilities contracted with local governments. Accordingly, officials at the facility are complaining that the number of disposable items is on the rise compared to before.
An official from the Seoul City Resource Circulation Division said, “Last year, the amount of garbage collected at municipal sorting centers increased by 15-20% compared to 2019.”
An official from a municipal sorting plant in Seoul also said, “In 2020, when Corona 19 began, plastic waste nearly doubled compared to 2019.”
Statistics also support this situation. According to the Ministry of Environment on December 24 last year, in the aftermath of Corona 19 last year, food delivery increased by 75.1% and parcel delivery by 19.8% from the same period in 2019. As a result, waste plastics increased by 14.6% and waste vinyl by 11%, respectively.
The problem is that, after Corona 19, garbage for delivery containers and packaging has been increasing, but separate collection is still difficult. According to an official at a sorting plant in Seoul, only about 60% of the garbage increased by Corona 19 is recycled through a sorting process, and the remaining 40% is discharged as normal garbage.
Director of the Flood Heat Resource Recycling Economic Research Institute pointed out three reasons for the low disposable product recycling rate. Director Hong said, “Because it is difficult to sort out small-volume containers such as plastic containers that contain sauces, it is difficult to recycle them, and in the case of pickled radish bins, a plastic lid is covered with a heat-sealing method. It causes difficulties in recycling.”
In particular, Director Hong emphasized, “It is a container in which most of the disposable waste was stored in food,” he said. “If it is not washed and discharged, recycling is difficult because of the residual food.”
Director Hong emphasized that as the number of disposable items is increasing in the face of Corona 19, it is urgent to prepare a system to reduce garbage in the future. He said, “It will be most effective to reduce the use of single-use items,” he said. “If you don’t use disposable items, you need to come up with a policy to deliver multi-disposable containers and reorganize the system so that consumers pay more when delivering disposable containers. Said.
He added, “The improvement of the material structure at the production stage should also be carried out,” he said. “When producing products, production should be focused on a single material rather than a composite material that causes difficulties in recycling.”
(Seoul = News 1)
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