Jung-gu, Seoul expands instant rice container volume-rate bag exchange business

1 volume-rate bag for 20 instant rice containers... “Recycling of instant rice containers”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jeong Joon-young = Seoul Jung-gu (district mayor Kim Gil-seong) announced on the 28th that it will add 'empty instant rice containers' to the 'recyclable volume-rate bag exchange project' items from the 1st of next month.

The district said that the project to exchange instant rice containers for pay-as-you-go bags is the first in the country.

The district explained the background of the project, saying, "Instant rice containers are multi-layer composite plastics combined with oxygen blocking materials, but they can be recycled if they are properly sorted. However, due to the lack of a dedicated collection system, even in Jung-gu, where instant rice consumption is active due to the large number of single-person households, most of the empty containers were incinerated or landfilled as general waste."

The district has come up with a plan to exchange 20 containers for one 10L (liter) volume-rate bag.

A maximum of 3 tickets can be exchanged per person per day.

This project is carried out in connection with the ‘Free Supply and Support Business Agreement for Volume-Based Bags’ signed with CJ CheilJedang in April.

The 350,000 biodegradable bio-material bags donated at the time will be used as supplies. In particular, after prior consultation, not only CJ's Hetbahn products but also other companies' instant rice containers were included in the recall.

The district said that the instant rice containers will be temporarily stored and collected before being delivered to a raw material processing company and reborn into various household items such as gift set trays, key rings, and desk clocks.

The district has been operating the ‘recyclable volume-rate bag exchange project’ since October 2021. Transparent PET bottles (20), cans and glass bottles (20), used batteries (20), milk cartons (20), and waste vinyl (1kg) are exchanged for one 10L volume-rate bag.

District Mayor Kim Gil-seong said, “This is a meaningful example of solving the problem of instant rice containers, which were in the recycling blind spot, through public-private cooperation,” and added, “We will continue to discover effective resource circulation policies that residents can easily participate in in their daily lives.”