<Anchor> Since

Corona 19 spread, the amount of disposable plastics has increased significantly. So we prepared a series of reports starting today (29th) to find out the reality and countermeasures. In the first order, I will show you the appearance of Korea with plastics scattered all over the place and the statistics of the plastic growth rate since the first Corona 19.

Reporter Choi Jae-young, reporter Shim Young-gu, and reporter Son Hyeong-an will deliver in turn.

<Reporter Choi Jae-young> It

is the sea near Sasu Port, Jeju City. From the outside, it is a clear blue Jeju sea, but inside is different.

Egg boards, wrapping paper, and cups are all made of plastic.

[Choi Jae-young/Reporter: SBS Underwater Report Team came down to the sea and saw this plastic waste easily. In particular, even in the pile of rubbish piled up in the gap, I was able to confirm that there were many plastic wastes that could not go to the sea.]


The same is true of Jeongbang Falls, which falls directly into the sea.

The sea urchin knew that the PET bottle was a rock and settled.


Objects that look like jellyfish, all plastic, which causes problems.

This year, four endangered sea turtles were found dead.

As the National Institute of Ecology tried to dissect it, vinyl came out of the stomach as expected.

[Lee Hyerim/National Ecological Institute Veterinarian: (This vinyl) is a soft plastic, and these two are slightly crunchy vinyl. There are many cases where sea turtles misinterpret jellyfish as jellyfish.]

``Plastic waste has been found in 40 out of 49 sea turtles that have been found dead since 2017.

It weighs about 150 grams.

[Lee Hyerim/National Institute of Ecology, Veterinarians: If you have analyzed even fine plastics, you know that it has been 100% so far.]

<Reporter Shim Young-gu>

These disposable plastics and wrecks were collected and analyzed for the first time since corona 19. .

During the two months in February and March, it increased 13% from the same period last year.

It increased slightly in 2018 and 2019, but it surged especially this year.

By type, the largest amount of vinyls was followed by papers.

Plastics have doubled in growth over the previous year.

If this plastic, recycling is good, there will be no major problems, but it is not.

<Reporter Son Hyeong-an>

Disposable plastic cup for cold coffee, marked recyclable.

However, in fact, all recycling sorting sites are classified as incineration.

Even the same plastic cup has different materials, so it is difficult to recycle if it is mixed together.


[Hong Soo-Yeol, Director of the Institute for Resource and Recycling Socio-Economics: PET is used, and PP or PS materials are sometimes used. Mixing by material causes problems with recycling. Recycling companies don't accept them because they are not screened correctly.]

What about other plastics?

This apartment separates and recycles every Friday.

[Collection worker: (Since Corona 19) Plastic has grown a lot. You can see that it is 50kg, two more. Compared to normal.]

I have seen what can't be recycled and thrown away.

[Selection worker: There is something like red pepper paste. Something like foreign matter. Plastic materials must be thrown away.]

Most plastics with mixed materials are eliminated.

[Kim Jong-Su/Chief of the Selection Center: The shell and the body (container) are different. If you see here, PS, PS on the outside. The child has something else written on it. OTHER (PP), it's different.]

[Representation of the old/recycling company: There is nothing wrong with these materials even with one material. But there is no reason to use PET and PP here.] The

discarded things cannot be recycled and all are incinerated.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups rated the recycling rate of domestic waste plastics as 21%, excluding plastics burned at power plants.

<Reporter Choi Jae-young>

However, our government calculations are different.

The government considers the recycling rate of domestic waste plastics to be around 66%.

The difference is whether burning or burning plastic is seen as recycling or not.

In Korea, this is classified as recycling under the name of'energy recovery', but in the European Union it is classified as'waste'.

This is because harmful substances such as fine dust come out.

According to the EU standards, our recycling rate drops to 21%, because the plastics burned in Korea are about 45%.

It's time to make the policy direction so that it can be recycled like environmentally advanced countries, rather than the plastic fuel that is being criticized for "burn because it doesn't rot."

[Video·Underwater: Byeongju Lee·Jinjinho·Hojun Choi, Video Editing: Park Player, CG: Hong Sungyong·Choi Jaeyoung·Lee Yejung, VJ: Hanwook Jung·Choa Choi]