'Multi-use container delivery' costs 1,000 won by consumers... Are there any disadvantages to participating in eco-friendly activities? [Reporter Seman Jang's Eco Bridge]

With the rapid increase in food delivery along with COVID-19, the amount of single-use plastic waste has increased significantly and has become a serious problem.

For this reason, environmental groups such as the Green Alliance raised their voices from last year to create a multi-use container system that can be collected, washed, and used repeatedly.

However, large platforms such as Baedal Minjok and Coupang Eats did not budge.

Delivery apps like this have changed recently.

On April 22, the nation of delivery and the four major delivery apps, including Yogiyo, Coupang Eats, and Danggyeomyo, signed a business agreement with the Seoul Metropolitan Government for the second pilot project of the multi-use container.

From May, these companies will start delivering food in multi-use containers in Gangnam-gu, Gwanak-gu, and Gwangjin-gu, Seoul.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is planning to recruit 500 restaurants in line with this. 

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The decision of delivery apps to participate in the multi-use container service, even if it is belatedly, is fortunate.

Social public opinion on delivery garbage must have acted as the biggest pressure, but the positive results of the first pilot project conducted by Yogiyo alone with the Seoul Metropolitan Government greatly influenced this decision.

Obstacles to settling multi-use containers...

Who will share the service cost of 1,000 won?

So, is the multi-use container service expanding smoothly?

I can't say for sure yet.

The key is because of the cost of the multi-container service.

The multi-use container that the consumer puts out after eating the food delivered is taken away by a cleaning company that specializes in collection and washing, and then supplied back to the restaurant.

It costs thousands of won per case to go through collection → washing → re-supply.

In the first pilot project, consumers have been using the service free of charge through the city's budget support and the self-burden of the cleaning company.

However, as a result of cost analysis of cleaning companies, it was found that after the pilot project was completed, the burden of 1,000 won per case was inevitable. 

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Since the delivery fee has already risen, it costs 3 to 5 thousand won per case.

A bigger problem is the issue of equity, in which consumers who use multi-use containers are at a disadvantage.

Disposable device users, who provide a cause of pollution by discharging plastic waste, use the service without any additional burden. .

Contributions from the Ministry of Environment that are mixed without separation of accounts, what is fairness?

An answer to these fundamental questions is needed to ensure that the multi-use container service is positioned on the market.

Experts argue that one way to do this is to use a waste levy.

According to the polluter pays principle, manufacturers, sales, and importers of synthetic resins are paying a certain amount of waste fees. The amount collected has more than tripled in 10 years. 60.5 billion won)

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This money is transferred to the Environment Improvement Special Account of the Ministry of Environment, but there is no separate account for the waste levy, and it is used mixed with other levies and revenue sources.

Since the money was collected as a quasi-tax for a specific purpose, it is correct that it is used only for the intended use.

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Waste-related Ministry of Environment’s business expenses, heavy dependence on industry levies

To understand more details, we took a look at the 2020 levy management comprehensive report prepared by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

According to this, out of a total of 841.5 billion won (water quality, waste, nature conservation, etc.) collected by the Ministry of Environment in 2020, waste-related charges (waste levy, recycling levy, waste disposal levy) totaled 405.4 billion won.

It accounts for 48% of total levy revenue.

On the other hand, out of the 6.608 trillion won in expenditures spent in the entire environmental improvement special account in the same year, waste-related money (promoting the formation of a resource recycling society and building a resource recycling base) was 529.8 billion won, accounting for only 8% of the total. 

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What about other fields, let's compare it to water conservation.

There are two types of water quality-related charges: KRW 14.5 billion for water quality improvement and KRW 11.3 billion for water quality discharge, which accounted for 3% of the total amount collected in 2020.

On the other hand, of the money used by the Ministry of Environment (special account for environmental improvement), KRW 2.27 trillion was spent on water quality conservation and management.

It accounted for 34% of the total expenditure for environmental improvement. 

Another thing to be aware of is that the various levies collected by the Ministry of Environment alone cannot cover all expenditure items, so they receive help in the form of transfer to general accounting.

General accounting refers to the amount of budget distributed by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance to each department among the taxes collected by the government.

The amount of transfers from general accounting (5,899.9 billion won) is six times larger than the income from various charges (841.5 billion won).

And all this money is put into one basket without separate accounts and is being used collectively.

Resolving the issue of equity among industries by increasing government support for general accounting

What does it mean when these contents are put together? Most of the project costs related to water quality conservation are spent by the government, but the proportion of water quality-related contributions is very small.

On the other hand, as for waste, it is revealed that there was a high dependence on the company to cover almost all waste-related business expenses with the contributions paid by the companies, and the government money was not used very much.

In the end, it is difficult to avoid criticism that the companies that have paid the waste levy have imposed a higher levy than those in other fields such as water quality because it is easy to collect money.

In view of equity, it is reasonable to increase the waste appropriation project cost by increasing the general accounting matching amount for the relevant field as much as it has collected a large amount of waste-related charges.

If we expand support for the multi-use container delivery service through this, we can contribute to resolving the KRW 1,000 burden on consumers and increase the participation rate for multi-use containers.

▶ 'Baemin' and 'Coupang' also jump in...

'Multi-use container' delivery, what is the cost?