Daegu City: "For Apartment Complexes, Please Dispose of Transparent PET Bottles in Designated Collection Bins"

Guidelines for 'Recyclable Resource Separation' Revised... Applied to Detached Houses from December Next Year

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Jae-ho] Daegu City announced on the 10th that starting from the 25th, all transparent PET bottles generated in apartment complexes must be separated from existing waste plastic products and disposed of in dedicated collection bins.

Following the revision of the Ministry of Environment's "Guidelines on Separate Collection of Recyclable Resources," this will apply to apartment complexes from the 25th. Detached housing areas will follow one year later, on December 25th of next year.

Transparent PET bottles have very high value as high-quality recycled raw materials such as fibers, but until now, they have been mixed with colored PET bottles or general plastics, making it impossible to use them as high-quality recycled raw materials. To secure sufficient recycled raw materials, 22,000 tons of waste PET bottles are imported annually from countries such as Japan.

According to the Ministry of Environment, once the separate disposal of transparent PET bottles is established, the volume of high-quality recycled waste PET bottles in Korea is expected to increase (29,000 tons in 2018 → 100,000 tons in 2022), which can sufficiently replace the amount imported from countries like Japan.

Lee Sang-gyu, head of the Resource Circulation Division of Daegu City, said, "Recycling starts with the interest and practice of citizens. We ask for the continuous interest and active participation of citizens so that the separate disposal of transparent PET bottles can be established early."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.