Seongnam City's Volume-Based Waste Bag Design Changed After 27 Years Recognized as an 'Excellent Case of Regulatory Innovation'

[Asia Economy (Seongnam) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Seongnam City in Gyeonggi Province has changed the design of its volume-based waste bags to be more user-friendly for citizens, marking the first redesign in 27 years since the system's implementation, and has been selected as an "Excellent Case of Proactive Administrative Regulatory Innovation."

On the 22nd, Seongnam City announced that the Ministry of the Interior and Safety recently evaluated Seongnam's handle-type volume-based waste bags as a case of regulatory innovation in the field of smart administration, after reviewing 506 cases from local governments nationwide.

The city has been selling the newly designed volume-based waste bags since May 1. The new bags feature pictograms visualizing prohibited disposal items for citizens' convenience and are designed with handles.

For incineration and reusable bags, prohibited items such as plastics, bottles, ceramics, food waste, cans, and batteries are marked with slashes over their shapes for easy identification.

Carbon emissions per size are also indicated to help reduce greenhouse gases.

For example, the 20L bag shows a pictogram indicating that disposing of that amount of waste emits 5.26 kg of CO₂, and reducing 20L of waste is equivalent to planting five pine trees.

To accommodate foreign residents, the bag names by usage are labeled in both English and Chinese.

A city official stated, "By changing the design of the volume-based waste bags to be demand-centered, we expect to spread a proper waste separation culture."

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