Seoul's Gangnam District said on Oct. 20 that it will strengthen management of clothing collection boxes where residents can discard old clothes and donate about 7.8 million won in annual revenue to public-interest projects.
According to Gangnam District, until now the contractor made and installed the clothing collection boxes directly. A single company operated all 22 neighborhoods in Gangnam District. The company had to pay a road occupancy fee when installing the boxes, did not maintain the aging boxes, and the quality of the collection service deteriorated.
In May, Gangnam District enacted the Gangnam District clothing collection box installation and management local government ordinance and overhauled the operating system. First, it decided to split Gangnam District into two zones and induce competition among companies. It will also have the district make the boxes directly and switch to a method of lending them to operating companies.
Gangnam District also calculated the road occupancy fee based on the area of the clothing collection boxes and the publicly announced land price of where they are placed. If the occupancy fee that private companies must pay is higher than the box rental fee, the difference will be settled as a donation; if the rental fee is higher than the occupancy fee, only the rental fee will be paid.
Based on 300 clothing collection boxes, Gangnam District projected that more than 7.8 million won in donations will be secured annually. The district plans to use the donations for local youth scholarships, among other purposes.
District Chief Cho Seong-myeong said, "Starting with clothing collection boxes, we will expand and apply the 'Gangnam-style resource virtuous-cycle model' to various waste sectors and leap forward as an autonomous district leading waste reduction."