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, May 31 (Korea Bizwire) — New regulations aimed at promoting resource circulation and plastic recycling should see the approval of recycled transparent PET bottle use in food product packaging from next year at the earliest.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) and the Ministry of Environment jointly announced plans to amend regulations towards enabling transparent plastic bottles to be used as a packaging material for food products.
Accordingly, among the plastics gathered through the Ministry of Environment’s initiative to separate and collect transparent PET bottles for food, recycling materials that can meet the safety standards of the MFDS would be allowed to be used in the production of food containers.
The recycling process consists of washing the collected and separated transparent plastic bottles, and then breaking them down into small pieces before making new products out of the new raw material.
The MFDS issued an advance administrative notice of amendment to the “standards and specifications for instruments and container packaging” that would clear the way for recycled plastics to be used for food products.
Thus far, recycled materials created through the processes of washing and crushing have been prohibited from being used for food packaging.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
