The government will build a system to collect discarded volume-based garbage bags and extract naphtha. It will also expand plastic circular use by extracting recycled polyester from police uniforms that had been incinerated.
The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment on the 28th announced a plan to shift to a "plastic-free circular economy."
The core is to build infrastructure to recover waste plastic that had been incinerated or landfilled as much as possible and use it as recycled feedstock. To that end, the government will expand the distribution of preprocessing facilities that open, sort, and wash volume-based garbage bags, and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and optical sorters.
Waste vinyl sorted in the preprocessing stage will be collected through a metropolitan-level collection system, undergo pyrolysis, and be converted into recycled naphtha. Because recycled naphtha can replace petroleum-based naphtha used in plastic production, it is expected to help address raw material supply instability originating in the Middle East.
The circular use of clothing waste, which had long been outside recycling, will also move forward. In cooperation with the Korean National Police Agency, the government will establish a system to collect worn-out police uniforms, extract recycled polyester, or reprocess them into filler and insulation, and it plans to expand the scope to include military uniforms. The expansion of recycled feedstock use will proceed in parallel. The mandatory share of recycled feedstock currently applied to PET bottles (10%) will be raised to 30% by 2030.
The plan also includes source reduction measures to cut plastic use itself. Cosmetic containers and plastic bags will be guided to switch unnecessary products to alternatives such as paper through recyclability assessments. For parcel packaging, the product-to-box space ratio will be capped at 50% or less, and the number of packaging layers will be limited to one to curb excessive packaging. Packaging that is difficult to recycle will face restricted market entry through industry agreements.
Policies to switch single-use items to reusable containers will proceed in parallel. Starting with 78 publicly operated facilities among funeral homes nationwide (1,075 locations), the government will sign agreements to use reusable containers and will gradually expand to the private sector based on the results. It plans to establish a culture of using reusable containers at business sites' cafeterias, cafes, and sports stadiums. It will also pursue agreements with the food and beverage industry, including expanding discounts for bringing personal cups to coffee chains.
Through this, the government aims to reduce the use of virgin materials by 30% compared with the projected generation of waste plastic by 2030. As of 2024, the annual waste plastic output was 7.8 million tons and is projected to increase to 10 million tons by 2030. The government plans to curb the 2030 output to around 7 million tons by cutting 1 million tons through source reduction and 2 million tons through substitution with recycled feedstock.