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| Transparent plastic bottles must be separated from other plastic waste for better recycling. / gettyimagesbank |
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Korea is known for its high recycling rate, as most people in the country are familiar with basic waste-sorting practices separating general and recyclable waste. According to 2018 statistics compiled by the Ministry of Environment, Korea's recycling rate is about 86 percent, which is one of the highest in the world.
However, experts say those numbers are illusory, because the ministry only counts the amount of recyclable waste collected.
"After being collected, recyclable waste is sorted at a recycling plant or a materials recovery facility before actually being recycled. A sizable portion of the collected recyclable waste is classified as general waste at the facility as it falls short of the standard for recycling. The government's statistics can't tell how much of the recyclable materials are actually reused," Hong Su-yeol of Resource Recycle Consulting said.
"Koreans have been deluded into thinking that they are good at recycling as they sort out waste well. The amount of separated recyclable waste is actually not the amount recycled."
To upgrade the quality of plastic recycling, the Ministry of Environment introduced new guideline last December for waste sorting that requires the separate collection of clear PET bottles at apartment complexes with over 300 units.
Despite the government's promotional efforts, the general public is not well aware of the differences between transparent bottles that are subject to the separate collection process and those that are not.
"The aim of the new guideline is to provide high-quality recycling materials of clear bottles for water and other drinks. It should not be combined with bottles that previously contained cosmetics or detergent," Hong said.
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| Workers sort plastic waste on a conveyor belt at a recycling center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, in this October 2020 photo. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
Breathing life into small plastic pieces
As awareness of recycling grows, a project that recycles small plastic pieces is receiving much attention. The project has drawn so much attention that its website crashed after too many people accessed it wanting to send in their bottle caps.
Plastic Mill, a plastic recycling project run by the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM), is enjoying unexpected popularity since its launch last year.
Yona Kim, an activist in charge of Plastic Mill, said the project aims to recycle small plastic pieces excluded from the regular recycling process and ultimately raise awareness for the need to reduce the use of plastics.
"Though Koreans are good at sorting recyclable waste, small plastic pieces are not combed through due to their size at recycling plants. Larger items such as water bottles are hand-sorted, but those that are smaller than the palm of a hand are easily missed on a conveyor belt," Kim said during a phone interview with The Korea Times, Thursday.
"Due to excessive packaging and increased parcel deliveries, more and more plastic waste is produced in Korea. We thought we had to do something to reduce it."
The project's participants are called "sparrows," which is inspired by the Korean proverb, "A sparrow cannot just pass by a mill," which means you cannot pass up something you like when you see it.
"We came up with the name in relation to our project's title 'Mill.' What we do is basically collect small plastic waste and melt it for remolding," Kim said.
Plastic Mill only accepts two types of plastic ― polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE).
"We use HDPE bottle caps and small PP products smaller than the size of a palm. These two are known as safer plastics, producing less toxic substances when heated, and are commonly used as food containers and cosmetics jars," Kim explained.
Participating sparrows have collected over 800 kilograms of plastic waste, which would be converted into 265,000 bottle caps.
"We ask our sparrows to send plastics with clear symbols stating its type as we only can use PP and HDPE. However, some participants are not well aware of those terms and send unidentified ones as well, so we have to sort them out," Kim said.
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| Plastic Mill collects small plastic waste such as bottle caps, and upcycles them into various objects such as tube wringers. Courtesy of Korean Federation for Environmental Movement |
At Plastic Mill, collected plastic pieces are sorted according to their type. For upcycling production, Plastic Mill employs Precious Plastic, an open-source platform for plastic recycling initiated in the Netherlands.
"We clean dirty ones and dry them. Then we classify them by color for the look of the finished product. We pulverize and heat them for injection molding," Kim said.
Plastic Mill's current product lineup includes soap dishes, tube wringers and key rings, and they are sent to the participants as a reward.
"We are working on making plastic sheets to make small furniture out of it, like sheets of plywood. This would expand the possibility for the use of recycled plastic. Currently, we are hosting a design competition using the plastic sheets and the winning design will be produced via crowdfunding."
At first, the project aimed to recruit 500 sparrows, but over 900 people applied and it was expanded to a serial program with 2,000 sparrows for each session. When the registration for the third Sparrow Club opened in early March, the website crashed due to overwhelming requests.
"There are only three activists in this project and the size of our workshop is limited. The whole process is done manually, so we cannot accept everyone who wants to take part," Kim said. "However, this is not a project to collect as much plastic waste as possible. Our ultimate goal is to spread awareness of the amount of plastic waste we produce in our daily lives and reduce it."
As more people take interest in the Plastic Mill project, KFEM will hold a presentation to share its know-how.
"As we collect bottle caps via parcel service, we realized that the parcels again produce too much waste. So starting with the next group, we will assign regional hubs to collect small plastics," Kim said. "Ultimately, it would be nice to have a plastic mill in each neighborhood, so people can recycle near their homes."
Kim emphasized that there should be fundamental improvements in the manufacturing process.
"Recycling and reusing plastic are not the answers we are looking for. Individual consumers can try to use less plastic, but manufacturers should also make improvements to reduce the use of plastic while the government should institute related policies as well," she said.
