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| A Korea Environment Corporation official examines metal scrap from computer parts at a recycling firm in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province. Courtesy of Korea Environment Corporation |
By Ko Dong-hwan
A new waste reduction pact has brought together 30 major company manufacturing sites in Korea under the central government's agreement for a trial starting this month.
The agreement subjects the voluntary members of the companies, Ministry of Environment, and Korea Environment Corporation to the unionized environmental cause until December 2021. Factories of Kia Motors, Samsung Display, Samsung Electronics, LG Chem, POSCO furnaces, and Hyundai Motor Company are some of the members.
A key understanding of the agreement on Monday is to reduce plastic and other synthetic resin waste at manufacturing stages and recycle more of such waste that are ending up at incineration.
The tripartite agreement obligates participating manufacturers to improve operation processes to make packaging more efficient and waste more recyclable. The environment corporation plans to support the manufacturers with technical advice on recycling technologies and in sharing data. The ministry, on top of the parties, exercises administrative and regulatory revamps.
Resources Circulation Policy Division official Lee Yong-ki from the ministry said, "Corporate participation and efforts are imperative in reducing manufacturing waste.
"Exemplary cases out of this demonstrative business will be mirrored not just to the participating companies but all companies and their factories in the country."
The latest agreement comes amid the rising amount of manufacturing waste despite improved recycling in the country. The waste from 2018 was 167,727 tons a day, which was 38 percent of the country's overall waste and an increase from 148,443 tons from 2013. The recycling rate of the waste in 2013, on the other hand, was 75.4 percent and 82 percent in 2018.
After the ministry in 2018 proclaimed the resources circulation achievement management policy under the Framework Act on Resource Circulation, the ministry has been monitoring local companies with particularly large amounts of waste to see how much they recycled and how little they incinerated or reclaimed waste.
