Seoul City Detects 56 Cases of Excessive Packaging During Lunar New Year... 'Repackaging Ban' Fines Starting April

Results of Intensive Inspection of Large Retailers Across Seoul from January 27 to February 10
Total of 577 Suspected Violations, 181 Packaging Inspections Conducted

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul City announced on the 30th that it detected 56 violations related to oversized packaging and compliance with packaging standards, focusing on gift sets at major retailers across Seoul ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February.

The inspection process involved conducting on-site preliminary measurements, ordering packaging inspections from the respective manufacturers if violations were suspected, and imposing fines if the final packaging inspection results from two testing agencies exceeded the standards.

According to Seoul City, out of 577 cases inspected, packaging inspections were conducted on 181 cases, with 56 final violations detected. The types of violations were as follows: packaging space ratio violations (47 cases), failure to submit inspection reports (8 cases), and packaging frequency violations (1 case). By category, toys accounted for the highest number with 17 cases, followed by processed foods with 15 cases, and cosmetics with 11 cases.

Seoul City directly imposed fines on 21 products from businesses located in Seoul among the detected cases, while for products from companies located in other cities and provinces, Seoul requested those local governments to impose fines.

Seoul City plans to expand its twice-yearly intensive inspections for oversized packaging, previously conducted during Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays, to include various commemorative days such as Valentine's Day and Christmas. For 'repackaging,' which involves bundling products using additional packaging materials during the sales process, fines of up to 3 million KRW will be imposed starting in April if violations are detected.

Jung Mi-seon, head of the Resource Circulation Division at Seoul City, stated, “Oversized packaging and repackaging cause serious environmental pollution problems such as unnecessary resource waste and increased waste generation,” urging manufacturers to make voluntary efforts to reduce packaging waste and encouraging consumers to adopt eco-friendly consumption habits.

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