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We told you that the ice pack written as an eco-friendly paper material is actually plastic and is difficult to recycle. The Ministry of Environment today (29th) has taken measures to prevent the ice packs from being separated into paper.

Reporter Park Chan-bum.

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is an ice pack that is frequently used for shipping fresh and frozen foods.

It is said that it can be separated and collected from paper, but it is actually a piece of plastic that is made of paper.

[Ryu Jeong-yong/Professor of Paper Science and Engineering, Kangwon National University (SBS 8 o'clock on May 22): This is a film that is not melted and coated on paper, but attached in a film form.]

Since the SBS report in May that recycling of the ice pack is difficult The Ministry of Environment has taken action to delete the phrase'paper separation and discharge' for ice pack producers.

Accordingly, consumers should put the ice pack in a pay-as-you-go bag instead of separate collection.

For existing ice packs that use micro plastic as a refrigerant, a waste charge is newly established.

If the producer does not change the contents of the ice pack into environmentally friendly materials such as water, starch, or salt, it has been required to pay a waste charge starting in 2023.

[Hong Soo-Yeol/Director of the Institute for Resource Circulation and Socio-Economics: Because of the plastic material, there are a lot of acts of throwing away the contents in the ice pack into the toilet.

More than 210 million micro plastic ice packs that cannot be decomposed naturally and are difficult to incinerate or landfill were used last year.

The Ministry of Environment plans to standardize ice packs of different shapes and weights, and also create dedicated collection boxes to increase reuse.

(Video coverage: Park Seung-won, Video editing: Seung-yeol Lee, CG: Kyu-yeon Kim, So-min Um)