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Gov't moves to cut plastic use, expand recycling following supply disruptions, price hikes

Published: 28 Apr. 2026, 18:36

President Lee Jae Myung holds a plastic bottle that can be fully recycled during a Cabinet meeting held at the Blue House on April 28. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The government is moving to cut the use of plastic as much as possible and expand recycling, accelerating its push away from plastic after the conflict in the Middle East disrupted supplies of plastic raw materials and triggered price hikes and stockpiling of manufactured goods.

The aim is to reduce plastic by a total of 3 million tons by 2030, according to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment on Tuesday.

“About 8 million tons of waste plastic are generated each year from households and workplaces, and if this trend continues, about 10 million tons will be generated in 2030 alone,” Climate Minister Kim Sung-hwan said at a Cabinet meeting at the Blue House on Tuesday.

“We’ll reduce [that figure by] 1 million tons by not using plastic in the first place at the product production stage, and we’ll circulate another 2 million tons by using recycled materials.”

To achieve this goal, the government plans to replace single-use plastics with reusable products, especially at funeral halls, as only 100 of the country’s 1,075 funeral halls, or 9.3 percent, were using reusable containers as of December 2025.

“We will begin by having public funeral halls [such as the National Medical Center] use reusable containers, then expand [the practice] to private funeral halls,” Kim said.

Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment Kim Sung-hwan holds a polyethylene terephthalate can during a cabinet meeting at the Blue House on April 28. [YONHAP]

During the meeting, President Lee Jae Myung asked Kim whether the shift to reusable containers would be mandatory or recommended for funeral halls.

“If funeral halls use reusable containers, they will need storage space, so we plan to support the cost for that to encourage the switch,” the minister responded.

The government also plans to subsidize the use of recycled materials in cases in which plastic production is necessary.

Currently, 10 percent of polyethylene terephthalate bottles are made with recycled materials under the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources, and the ministry aims to raise that ratio to 30 percent by 2030.

President Lee Jae Myung holds a plastic bottle that can be fully recycled at a Cabinet meeting at the Blue House on April 28.[NEWS1]

To demonstrate the issue at hand, Kim placed a plastic soda bottle made entirely from recycled materials in front of the president during the cabinet meeting.

“The quality is relatively good, but it is somewhat expensive [to produce],” Kim said. “We will review how to support that expense.”

The government also plans to support the cost of equipment, such as melting and extrusion machines, used to make volume-rate garbage bags — one of the items affected by stockpiling — from recycled materials.

Additionally, the government will recycle plastic polyester used in police and military uniforms.

Until recently, the complicated recycling process behind such materials typically resulted in them being incinerated instead of recycled, but the government now plans to sign agreements with agencies, including the National Police Agency, to recycle the polyester or reuse the material in bedding and padded jackets.

President Lee Jae Myung holds a polyethylene terephthalate can at a Cabinet meeting at the Blue House on April 28. [YONHAP]

Environmental groups, however, argue that the target should be higher.

“The target announced today [...] is a reduction against projected 2030 waste levels,” Greenpeace Korea and the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements said on Tuesday. “If a clear, absolute reduction target is not established against a baseline year, [the government] will have done little different from tolerating an increase in waste plastic.”

They also said that simple recommendations would not be enough.

“Companies move according to economic calculations, so simple recommendations clearly have limits,” the groups said. “Economic incentives and compulsory measures must go hand in hand.”

Recycled items are processed at the Suwon Resource Circulation Center in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on April 21. [NEWS1]

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY HEO JEONG-WON [[email protected]]