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The policies of the waste disposal as well as recycling systems are controlled by Ministry of Environment in South Korea. The wastes are compulsory to be disposed into separated four parts which are landfill waste (For example, bones and teabags), organic waste, recyclable and large waste item (For instance, televisions and bicycle). The organic waste should be disposed as a dried waste and able to feed to livestock. Recyclable wastes such as, paper, plastics and glass, should be divided into different groups. The wastes are separated by different colors of specific plastic bags that are sold in the different areas which can be used only in that area. The penalty will be charged to the citizens who do not follow this policy and rewards will be provided for those who reports this particular action.

Circular economy in South Korea
Circular economy is the process of regenerative system which minimizes the waste and makes the most of resources. South Korea recorded the second highest recycling country among the OECD countries which is 59 percent in 2013. On January 1, 2018, the Ministry of Environment announced that they will enact the  "Basic Law on the Resource Circulation" to build foundation for sustainable resource recycling society. The law contains systems of recycling resource recognition, resource recycling performance management, product cycle utilization evaluation, and waste disposal fees. This will give result of reduction in waste production as well as promotion in recycling in processes from product production, distribution, consumption and disposal. For instance, the 'resource recycling performance management system' is applied to the enterprises who discharge over 100 tons of designated waste per year or over 1,000 tons of other waste. This system allows each workforce to establish the customized goals for recycling resources, evaluate the use of circulation and waste reduction. If the producer has difficulty in the recycling system from particular factors, 'circulation availability assessment system' will be introduced. In every three years, evaluation plan will be established for the improvements and if it is not implemented, the results will be revealed on the internet. The waste disposal fees of 10 ~ 30 won/kg of land-filled or incinerated wastes are charged to the municipalities and businesses unless it is 'recyclable resources' which are not environmentally harmful.

The government of South Korea provided the data regarding their achievement of large fall of amount of wastes generated a day by the each households from 1.3kg in 1994 to 0.94kg in 2013. The buried waste rate fell from 81.2 per cent to 9.6 per cent, burned wastes fell from 15.3 per cent to 6.4 per cent, and recycled wastes grew from 15.3 per cent to 83.2 percent from the year of 1994 to 2013. This provided South Korea to increase in economic growth by saving money.

Previously, paper cups and coated paper couldn't be recycled due to polyethylene (PE) coated on the surface of the paper which prevents from becoming damp. However, Repaper, the venture company in South Korea, developed and marketed recyclable coated cup by using the component of acrylate instead of polyethylene (PE). This development has been supplied to not only South Korea but Europe and United States.

Food waste in South Korea
Currently, 95 per cent of the South Korea's food wastes are recycled. However, South Korea was not a leading recycling country from the beginning. One of the food waste that contributes the highest in the world is South Korean small dishes, Banchan (반찬). South Korea creates food wastage over 130 kilograms every year.

From 1995, South Korea separated the food wastes collection systems from households to decrease the amount of food wastes generated for landfill. The system requires the households to purchase particular garbage bag to throw the general waste to separate from the food waste. Food waste can be assembled through the unspecified garbage bag. Separation of waste collection system and its prohibition gave positive result of fall of general waste by the households who wants to save money. Yet, it did not gave high rate of separation of food.

According to the Ministry of Environment (at the year 2005), the total food waste that is created is about 13,000 ton in a day that is approximately more than 27 per cent of total municipal solid waste. Food wastes in South Korea have a higher moisture content than other countries which putrefies extremely easily and landfill of food wastes give serious threats to groundwater and soil contamination. It also have a high salinity as well as extremely low pH. Greenhouse gas can be produced if there is landfill without gas facility. This results to putrefy, and landfills threat to ground water and soil contamination. Hence, from the year of 2005, food waste of landfill has been prohibited in South Korea and installed food waste recycling system which involves the food waste is feed-stock for animals and fertilizers. However, marine environment can be affected by detrimental effects that is produced by the disposal of Food Waste Leachate (FWL) to the ocean and the organic load in the plants increases as sewage treatment plants are disposed to the ocean. Thus, disposal of organic wastes to the ocean has been banned since 2012.

As technology advances in South Korea, the project of recycling the food waste has been successful. For instance, Smart bins can measure the weight of food wastage through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as well as weighing machine. In addition, according the weight of the food wastes, the fees are paid by the citizens by identification card. As a result, 47000 tonnes of food wastage decreased rapidly during 6 years. Now, 6000 of smart bins are placed in Seoul.

To prevent the production of leachate from landfill, after the year of 2005, the South Korean government banned the food wastes landfill. Recycling food wastes system as well as separation of waste collection system were encouraged by the citizens rapidly. Moreover, the high rate of recycling food waste was reached through the dramatic increase of the participation of the citizens. In addition, at the year of 1995, the food waste recycling rate was only 2 per cent. Yet, From 2013, food wastage were mandatory to be recycled by biodegradable bags and the fees that are collected from payment of the bags promoted recycling food wastes. Thus, South Korea's  food waste recycling rate grew rapidly and now it reached 95 per cent.

Process of recycling food waste
The solid food waste goes through the Crusher then Crusher and Screen. It is passed to Screw Press then Dryer, Composter, Curing Facility, Storage and Fertilizer. The liquid food waste is processed in different way than solid food waste. The food waste leachate (FWL) is applied to food waste to recycle them into fertilizer. Leachate is generated 99.9 ton a day by the two facilities where they control 130 ton of food wastes a day.

E-waste in South Korea
The Law for Promotion of Resources Saving and Reutilization (LRSR) was applied in the year of 1992, by the recycling management in South Korea. However, Producer Deposit-Refund (PDR) system controlled the e-waste because LRSR was comprehensive. PDR system started by the year of 1992 until 2002, and it is made to increase the economic responsibility of the manufacturers to promote e-waste recycling. It involved Korea Recycling Corporation (KORECO), Ministry of Environment (MOE) as well as producers. MOE received the prepaid deposits from the manufacturers for the amount of outputs that is shipped during the previous year in order to cover the costs of recycling. Moreover, KORECO was responsible for the management concerning unreturned deposits together with recycling accomplishment. However, PDR system had errors and miscalculation in their system. The actual recycling costs were higher than the prepaid deposit which resulted the manufacturers choose to make prepaid deposits instead of recycling the e-waste. Furthermore, it involved inappropriate method of recycling the e-waste through municipality. As South Korea joined OECD from 1996, the recycling strategies developed by the influence of OECD publications and other developed countries. Since 2003, South Korean government established laws which the consumer electronics manufacturers need be fully responsible for the recycling of end-of-life (EOL) goods. If they cannot fulfill their recycling quotas, it will be charged. This is named as Producer Recycling (PR) system. Every appliances such as, televisions and computer, have specific recycling goal between 55-70 per cent in relation to its weight. There are three types of methods which producers can choose to achieve the goal. The first method is producers can create individual technique and system of recycling. Second method can be applied for outsourcing the recycling process. Lastly, third method  involves joining the  Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) which completes the recycling process for the producers. There was experimental project for initiating the PR system for 2 years from June, 2000 by the MOE and 3 large companies which chose to join the project voluntarily. Moreover, the 3 large companies are Samsung, Daewoo and LG. For those years, instead of paying deposits, the producers were compulsory to build facilities for the recycling system. On top of that, this project successful built recycling facilities such as Asan Recycling center in 1988 by Samsung, Chilseo Recycling center in 2001 by LG an Metropolitan Electronics Recycling Center in 2003. Through this construction of facilities, recycling rate rapidly increased.

On the report of the data by MOE (2003), the annual waste home appliances which is e-waste increased as South Korea’s economic growth increased. Many home appliances are recyclable and those materials can be used to create other products. About 40 percent of e-wastes are collected by the local government, about 50 percent is company's logistic center, and others are second hand goods centers, and secondhand dealers. In the year of 2003, The Ministry of Environment in South Korea released a data of collected waste home appliances status. From the collected waste home appliances, 12 per cent of them were reused, 69 per cent were recycled and 19 per cent were taken into incineration and landfill.

Plastic wastes
China was the largest reusable items importer in the world. However, China stopped buying the plastic wastes from 2018. Due to its valueless, the 48 recycling businesses in South Korea stopped collecting plastic wastes causing it to be piled up. After two weeks of April (2018), the government took an action to financially support the recycling businesses to end this matter. The Ministry of Environment decided to decrease 50 per cent of the massive amount of plastic waste and increase the rate of recycling to 70 per cent from 34 per cent before 2030. The Ministry of Environment will prohibit the production of colored plastic bottles in 2020, since it costs higher to recycle than those that are colorless. There is possibility of banning unnecessary amount of packages as well as goods that contain dangerous elements for instance, polyvinyl chloride. In addition, fall of the use of plastic bag will be resulted as well as use of plastic straws and disposable cups will be slowly eliminated before 2027. Since August 2018, the usage of plastic cups in the cafes became illegal unless they take-out the drinks. If they do not follow the rule, the penalty of 2,000,000 won will be paid. Instead of providing plastic umbrella cover which could not be recycled due to the wetness, the water absorbent carpet and/or umbrella dryer are provided. The citizens will be discouraged to use plastic bags but paper bags charging the enterprises who do not follow the regulation of three thousand won.

Since 2015, Seoul governments from South Korea introduced a new prohibition of paper and/or plastic in the common garbage bags. This gave confusions to the households in Seoul for some objects for example, tissue and diaper since those are also categorized into paper. Hence, governments made a clarification that they are not going to be recycled.