Discarded garments are heaped inside a buying and selling firm’s warehouse in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on this 2023 photograph. Courtesy of Daegu Textile Museum
The rising dominance of the quick style enterprise mannequin in Korea has generated an enormous quantity of material and different textile waste and not using a correct system to deal with or recycle them, fueling calls to introduce new legal guidelines to handle the issue and encourage corporations to develop recycling applied sciences.
In accordance with an October report from the Nationwide Meeting Analysis Service (NARS), the textile business in Korea accounts for 10 p.c of greenhouse fuel emissions throughout your entire industrial sector. Waste from households and industries add as much as 400,000 tons yearly, however lower than 20 p.c will get recycled. The remaining are incinerated or landfilled, both right here or in different nations.
Rep. Kim So-hee of the principle opposition Folks Energy Get together, along with the Ministry of Local weather, Power and Atmosphere and NARS, has begun tackling the difficulty.
They argue that probably the most pressing measure is to introduce new legal guidelines to outline the issue and pressure producers to deal with their very own waste, by implementing an prolonged producer accountability (EPR) coverage. That must be adopted by the introduction of a state-run recycling system, the event of recycling applied sciences by personal companies, and promotion of extra accountable textile consumption to residents, the group added.
The three sides are at present mulling over how one can outline “textile waste” from each households and enterprise operations. One other precedence is to introduce EPR to home companies as easily as doable.
“The introduction of EPR will first should be agreed upon by textile producers right here. Then, the regulation must be examined for about two years earlier than implementing it,” mentioned Kim Kyung-min, a legislative analysis officer at NARS who authored the October report.
Though EPR has but to be enforced right here, she expects that the worldwide transfer towards setting, social and governance (ESG) initiatives will encourage companies right here to just accept the regulation earlier than its enforcement.
“We are able to push EPR exterior the nation’s authorized boundary as properly,” she mentioned. “Apple, underneath its ESG dedication, pressured its strict recycling laws upon its major and secondary companion companies manufacturing iPhones. European nations have additionally propagated particular textile methods inside their home economies. Reining in textile waste is a worldwide motion now. On the local weather ministry, both the primary vice minister who oversees waste points or the second vice minister who oversees round financial system must spearhead the textile waste challenge.”
Rep. Kim So-hee speaks through the Nationwide Meeting’s authorities audit from Oct. 13 to Nov. 6. Courtesy of Rep. Kim’s workplace
It’s essential to introduce EPR throughout all home producers, however the textile business faces particular urgency due to its mounting environmental affect, in line with Rep. Kim So-hee’s workplace. The primary-term lawmaker mentioned that waste monitoring has been so uncared for right here that precisely tallying their quantity or how a lot is being recycled is at present inconceivable.
“We introduced up the difficulty through the Nationwide Meeting’s authorities audit interval from October to November, saying textile waste must be on prime of the nation’s EPR record,” an official underneath the lawmaker mentioned. “Not simply textiles — EPR should develop to broader forms of waste to bolster their recycling.”
The rise in textile waste primarily derives from the rise of quick style, the place manufacturers churn out round 900,000 tons of clothes yearly in Korea, most of it worn just for quick intervals of time, in line with calculations by NARS. Discarded garments undergo a downcycling course of, with a lot of them despatched to secondhand shops right here. The rest, about 40 p.c, is exported to Southeast Asia or Africa, or recycled right here for low added-value merchandise like single-use objects or industrial insulators. Lastly, they’re processed at incinerators and landfills.
Kim Kyung-min, citing comparable circumstances in France, the Netherlands, the UK and america in her NARS report, warned that Korean companies could possibly be affected by the European Union’s enforcement of recent laws mandating the separate assortment of textile waste. She added that corporations listed here are reluctant to develop recycling applied sciences comparable to renewable textiles as a result of they’re not sure in regards to the merchandise’ profitability and high quality.
“It’s extremely possible that Korean textile companies, with out adhering to EPR, will face commerce limitations within the world market. The federal government should introduce a state-run waste assortment system for extra clear circulation and cease exporting them to different nations,” Kim mentioned.
She added, “In 2005, Korea launched the world’s first legal guidelines to deal with meals waste, and so they stay efficient till now. It demonstrates that authorized enchancment and social consensus can accomplish a significant change within the quick time period.”
