Seoul City Operates 'Personal Cup and Reusable Cup Promotion Zone' Around Gwanghwamun Area

Seoul City announced on the 8th that it will designate the Gwanghwamun area as the "Personal Cup and Reusable Cup Usage Promotion Zone (Eco Zone)," one of the measures in the "Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Single-Use Plastics" announced last September, and will officially implement it starting with Starbucks stores using reusable cups.

Through this system, the city plans to designate the area around Gwanghwamun Station, City Hall Station, and Euljiro 1(il)-ga Station, a downtown business district, as the first clean zone, focusing on building infrastructure for reusable and personal cup usage, alleviating citizen inconveniences such as returning reusable cups, increasing usage rates, and expanding the initiative to other areas.

In addition, to stabilize the establishment of the Gwanghwamun clean zone, the city is recruiting companion groups consisting of cafes, company offices, and multi-use facilities located in Jongno and Jung-gu that will participate in reducing single-use cups by the 30th of this month. Participating companies (cafes) in the companion group are expected to implement the practical measures proposed by Seoul City to reduce single-use cups according to their own circumstances. The city plans to encourage participation in the companion group through administrative and financial support.

Jung Mi-seon, Director of the Resource Circulation Division of Seoul City, said, “By linking the downtown business district centered around Gwanghwamun as one, we expect to reduce the inconveniences of zero cafes that have been operated sporadically and enhance the promotional effect for reducing single-use products,” adding, “We request active participation from cafes, company offices, and multi-use facilities located in Jongno and Jung-gu.”

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