Mineral water bottles without a label are stacked up at a retail outlet in Seoul on Jan, 26, 2021. The labelless PET bottles were released for easier recycling. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — With the introduction of a new policy that obliges citizens to throw away colorless, transparent plastic bottles only after removing all non-plastic materials from them, a recent study showed that citizens are most frustrated with the label removal process.
The Korea Consumer Agency conducted a survey of 1,000 consumers who had thrown away transparent plastic bottles in the last six months, 70.6 percent of whom picked ‘taking off labels’ as the hardest part of throwing away plastic bottles.
Label removal was followed by ‘cleaning the bottles’ (64.7 percent), ‘separating the bottles from other trash’ (36.5 percent), and ‘confusion over what transparent plastic bottles are’ (31.9 percent).
A new policy that came into effect in December of last year requires citizens to throw away colorless, transparent plastic bottles used to contain water or other beverages after emptying them of all liquid, cleaning them, taking off the labels, compressing them, and putting on the lid.
Close to half of the respondents said there were no instructions available at their residential complex as to how these plastic bottles should be processed before they are thrown away.
Roughly 80 percent of apartment residents said there are related instructions available at their complex, but only 31.4 percent of detached home residents had access to these instructions.
Another 64.3 percent felt they needed supplementary tools at the garbage dump to help them with processing the plastic bottles, 54.1 percent of whom called for a ‘label detacher’.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
