How to Cope with the War Against Garbage



How to Cope with
the War Against Garbage

Due to COVID-19, non-face-to-face shopping has increased explosively, and the world is fighting a war with shipping.
Another war that is happening together with it is with all the disposable waste that comes with parcel and food deliveries.
As the delivery service market will only increase exponentially in the future,
this is a critical issue that surely must be dealt with. What are the countermeasures that the food industry is taking?
Let's take a look at the current situation and these countermeasures.
Article: Editor’s Office

The garbage war that started with COVID-19


The e-Commerce industry, which was already growing rapidly, is experiencing explosive growth. As a result, the use of parcel and food delivery services through online shopping has increased significantly. The problem is that there are piles of boxes, plastics, and disposables that come with this business growth. They are mostly plastics that do not decompose for a very long time, and they have direct and adverse effects on the environment.

It would not be a big problem if only they could all be recycled ─ but to recycle them, they must meet more requirements than is commonly thought. For plastics, there must be no food or other substances attached, and the containers must not be colored or have stickers attached.

If there is anything mentioned above, they must be manually cleaned and have labels removed. This was feasible in the past when labor was cheap. However, now various countries including China that used to import garbage do not allow the import thereof anymore due to environmental protection and regulations, and recycling has greatly slowed. In the end, when the waste does not meet all conditions required for recycling at the time of disposal, it needs to be landfilled or incinerated.

The increase of disposable waste is also evident in numbers. According to a survey by the Korea Environment Institute, when the pandemic occurred in 2020, domestic parcel delivery volume increased by more than 20% compared to the previous year, and more than 30% this year compared to the same period. Considering that the increase of delivery volume for the past 11 years was an average of 11% a year, this was a significantly steep increase.

The monthly transaction volume of online shopping and food delivery is even steeper. According to the online shopping trend survey by Statistics Korea, the amount of food service transactions was 5.2 trillion KRW in 2018, 9.7 trillion KRW in 2019, and 17.3 trillion KRW in 2020, increasing by 100% percent yearly. Based on the food service transaction reported by Statistics Korea, it seems that at least 8.3 million disposable delivery containers are thrown away per day.

Efforts to break the vicious cycle of disposable products


Ultimately, there must be increasing pressure on market-leading companies to play a role in reducing waste. Accordingly, companies are taking various measures to reduce waste based on this perception, and are continuously expanding them.

Baedal Minjok, which has the highest market share of the delivery platform, introduced the option for not providing disposable spoons, chopsticks, and forks from April 2019. Yogiyo and Coupang Eats implemented the policy of default setting of not providing disposable spoons, chopsticks, and forks. It was a small act of “giving the choice to consumers” rather than “not giving at all,” but the results were quite significant. Recently, Yogiyo has been allowing customers to receive food in multi-use containers of their choice.

The use of environmentally friendly packaging materials in the e-Commerce industry is also noticeable. Coupang uses only the minimum amount of packaging materials, reducing cushioning and packing materials. The conventional parcel delivery had to use various cushioning materials and layers of packaging to prevent product damage, because it had to go through several different logistics companies. However, Coupang made delivery with minimal packaging possible by adopting and end-to-end method of purchasing products directly and delivering them to consumers immediately.

In addition, in the fresh food sector such as Coupang’s Rocket Fresh service and Market Kurly, the occurrence of large amount of parcel garbage is fundamentally severed by using eco bags that are collected by delivery staff afterwards.

Coffee, which is consumed on an average of two cups per day by adult men and women in Korea, also played a role in the sudden increase of garbage. In the past, it was required to use reusable cups in the stores, but the use of disposable cups is temporarily allowed in stores as well due to concerns about infection. The gravity of the problem lies in the fact that the disposable cups used in the cafes are almost never collected or recycled. In response, some stores give discounts to customers who get drinks in their personal tumblers. In addition, public institutions including the city of Seoul are also carrying out a zero-use of disposable products campaign that prohibits the use of disposable products in buildings, or actively encouraging the use of tumblers.

Everyone’s support than strict regulations for change


According to a survey recently conducted by the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission, 97.8% of the respondents said they think the environmental pollution caused by plastic waste is serious. A national consensus is thus being formed. However, it is pointed out as a limitation that the methodology for this is mainly based on advice and regulations.

The general view is that the amount of waste such as disposables will not decrease even after COVID-19 subsides. Therefore, the approach that is receiving more support to reduce disposable waste sustainably is that while expanding regulations at an appropriate pace and extent, efforts must be made to increase policies for reusable packaging materials and recyclable products continuously after COVID-19.

It will be difficult to establish unilateral regulations, as there are also cases where the use of disposable products is unavoidable. Therefore, appropriate regulations would be to reduce disposed quantities naturally by standardizing and reducing the production of disposables, or to limit the use of raw materials that are difficult to recycle at the time of production.

Of course, the fundamental solution to the problem of garbage in the post-COVID era would be to reduce the use of disposable products itself. From now on, we should start making individual efforts by avoiding the use of disposables ─ by using tumblers, or non-labeled products, or consuming products that can be recycled.

2021.12.01

Due to COVID-19, non-face-to-face shopping has increased explosively, and the world is fighting a war with shipping.
Another war that is happening together with it is with all the disposable waste that comes with parcel and food deliveries.
As the delivery service market will only increase exponentially in the future,
this is a critical issue that surely must be dealt with. What are the countermeasures that the food industry is taking?
Let’s take a look at the current situation and these countermeasures.
Article: Editor’s Office

The garbage war that started with COVID-19

The e-Commerce industry, which was already growing rapidly, is experiencing explosive growth. As a result, the use of parcel and food delivery services through online shopping has increased significantly. The problem is that there are piles of boxes, plastics, and disposables that come with this business growth. They are mostly plastics that do not decompose for a very long time, and they have direct and adverse effects on the environment.

It would not be a big problem if only they could all be recycled ─ but to recycle them, they must meet more requirements than is commonly thought. For plastics, there must be no food or other substances attached, and the containers must not be colored or have stickers attached.

If there is anything mentioned above, they must be manually cleaned and have labels removed. This was feasible in the past when labor was cheap. However, now various countries including China that used to import garbage do not allow the import thereof anymore due to environmental protection and regulations, and recycling has greatly slowed. In the end, when the waste does not meet all conditions required for recycling at the time of disposal, it needs to be landfilled or incinerated.

The increase of disposable waste is also evident in numbers. According to a survey by the Korea Environment Institute, when the pandemic occurred in 2020, domestic parcel delivery volume increased by more than 20% compared to the previous year, and more than 30% this year compared to the same period. Considering that the increase of delivery volume for the past 11 years was an average of 11% a year, this was a significantly steep increase.

The monthly transaction volume of online shopping and food delivery is even steeper. According to the online shopping trend survey by Statistics Korea, the amount of food service transactions was 5.2 trillion KRW in 2018, 9.7 trillion KRW in 2019, and 17.3 trillion KRW in 2020, increasing by 100% percent yearly. Based on the food service transaction reported by Statistics Korea, it seems that at least 8.3 million disposable delivery containers are thrown away per day.

Efforts to break the vicious cycle of disposable products

Ultimately, there must be increasing pressure on market-leading companies to play a role in reducing waste. Accordingly, companies are taking various measures to reduce waste based on this perception, and are continuously expanding them.

Baedal Minjok, which has the highest market share of the delivery platform, introduced the option for not providing disposable spoons, chopsticks, and forks from April 2019. Yogiyo and Coupang Eats implemented the policy of default setting of not providing disposable spoons, chopsticks, and forks. It was a small act of “giving the choice to consumers” rather than “not giving at all,” but the results were quite significant. Recently, Yogiyo has been allowing customers to receive food in multi-use containers of their choice.

The use of environmentally friendly packaging materials in the e-Commerce industry is also noticeable. Coupang uses only the minimum amount of packaging materials, reducing cushioning and packing materials. The conventional parcel delivery had to use various cushioning materials and layers of packaging to prevent product damage, because it had to go through several different logistics companies. However, Coupang made delivery with minimal packaging possible by adopting and end-to-end method of purchasing products directly and delivering them to consumers immediately.

In addition, in the fresh food sector such as Coupang’s Rocket Fresh service and Market Kurly, the occurrence of large amount of parcel garbage is fundamentally severed by using eco bags that are collected by delivery staff afterwards.

Coffee, which is consumed on an average of two cups per day by adult men and women in Korea, also played a role in the sudden increase of garbage. In the past, it was required to use reusable cups in the stores, but the use of disposable cups is temporarily allowed in stores as well due to concerns about infection. The gravity of the problem lies in the fact that the disposable cups used in the cafes are almost never collected or recycled. In response, some stores give discounts to customers who get drinks in their personal tumblers. In addition, public institutions including the city of Seoul are also carrying out a zero-use of disposable products campaign that prohibits the use of disposable products in buildings, or actively encouraging the use of tumblers.

Everyone’s support than strict regulations for change

According to a survey recently conducted by the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission, 97.8% of the respondents said they think the environmental pollution caused by plastic waste is serious. A national consensus is thus being formed. However, it is pointed out as a limitation that the methodology for this is mainly based on advice and regulations.

The general view is that the amount of waste such as disposables will not decrease even after COVID-19 subsides. Therefore, the approach that is receiving more support to reduce disposable waste sustainably is that while expanding regulations at an appropriate pace and extent, efforts must be made to increase policies for reusable packaging materials and recyclable products continuously after COVID-19.

It will be difficult to establish unilateral regulations, as there are also cases where the use of disposable products is unavoidable. Therefore, appropriate regulations would be to reduce disposed quantities naturally by standardizing and reducing the production of disposables, or to limit the use of raw materials that are difficult to recycle at the time of production.

Of course, the fundamental solution to the problem of garbage in the post-COVID era would be to reduce the use of disposable products itself. From now on, we should start making individual efforts by avoiding the use of disposables ─ by using tumblers, or non-labeled products, or consuming products that can be recycled.