JIANGSU GET RECYCLING TECHNOLOGY CO,.LTD.

In April 2019, the Ministry of environment of Korea released the "revised draft of packaging materials and design standards". Packaging materials include 9 kinds of materials, such as plastic bottles: paper, glass bottles, iron cans, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, composite materials, material of single or mixed materials, which have corrected the recycling grade standard.

The draft is based on the concept of easy reuse from the production stage of packaging materials with comprehensive consideration of domestic reuse infrastructure in Korea. In addition, it will expand and promote the initiative of citizens to separate the label on the bottle from the plastic bottle, and gradually reduce the adhesive of the label on the waste bottle.

In the amendment, the recycling level of nine packaging materials was improved from 1-3 to 4 levels, namely, the best, the ordinary and the poor. The original 1 level was divided into the best and the excellent, and the 2-3 level was combined into the poor, adding the ordinary level.

Ease of recycling	Existing		After correction
easily	Level 1	Fine distinction	optimal
			excellent
ordinary		Newly establish	ordinary
difficulty	Level 2-3	merge	difficulty

Whether the bottle is transparent and the label is easy to separate is the basis for judging the recycling level. In order to make the waste plastic bottle easy to recycle, the label that is easy to be peeled off by the consumer is preferred, and the material that is easy to separate the label with water is used. The adhesive area used to glue the label and the bottle body must be minimized.

The level 1 is: consumers can easily separate all labels;

The level 2 is: through the cleaning process, the label and the object can be separated (the density is lower than 1, so that the label floats on the water surface).

The wrinkled label of drinking water bottle accounts for less than 20% of the label area, and the sticker label accounts for less than 60% of the whole bottle area (according to the European standard, the label area is 50-70% based on the size of the bottle, and that in the UK is less than 60%).

The Ministry of environment will give a "best" grade to labels (proportion less than 1 non-contact type) that do not use adhesive and can be separated directly on water, and plans to pay a reward (Bonus). In addition, we plan to sign business agreements with relevant industries this year to expand the proportion of plastic bottles judged by the best grade.

At the same time, the labels of colored waste bottles and common adhesives that are not easy to be recycled will be revised in the second half of the year in principle and prohibited from use (it is expected to be implemented on December 25, 19). Therefore, from 2020, the waste bottles produced by beverage and mineral water bottles will be changed from colored to colorless, and the adhesive of label shall be replaced by non-contact or hot alkaline isolation adhesive.

In the future, according to the evaluation level, the differentiated contribution of EPR will be shared, and the effectiveness of packaging material and structure evaluation system will be strengthened from next year.

On November 19, Korea's Ministry of environment released a news release that in order to improve the quality of recycled PET bottles to replace imported plastics, it will improve the pilot project of PET bottle recycling system

According to statistics, South Korea has expanded the recycling of about 240000 tons of high-quality pet bottles every year through the PET bottle recycling system (up to 2018, about 300000 tons of PET bottles produced in South Korea, 80% of which were recycled (240000 tons), about 10% (29 tons) are high-quality materials, mainly used in sheet materials.

The improvement of PET bottle recycling system will be carried out from all recycling stages of recycling, collection and classification, together with the production of easy to recycle PET bottles, including the prohibition of the use of colored PET bottles, which will be implemented in December this year.

The Ministry of environment will only build recycling system for high quality”colorless plastic bottle , drinking bottle” at the beginning. And confirm the pilot project area after discussing with autonomous body and related enterprises in December of this year to promote the pilot project from January to June next year.

In addition , to support the classification process of January next year , it will offer support fund to the classification enterprises according to the level of quality.

The standard of level is expected to carry out differentiated management based on whether there are impurities or other materials in the waste bottles and the management system constructed by the classified enterprises.

In addition, the evolution result of classification enterprises will release by website of Ministry of environment every year to guarantee the transparency of system operation.

Lee Young-ki , resource recycling policy officer of Ministry of environment , said , we plan to start from improving the PET bottle recycling system , and will improve all independent recycling system of all recycling products.