The Ministry of Environment (Minister Cho Myung-rae) announced that it will hold various events under the theme of "Green Transformation, Shared Resource Recycling" to commemorate the "12th Resource Recycling Day".

The "Resource Recycling Day" of September 6th is a day designated by the Ministry of Environment since 2009 in order to raise people's awareness that "waste is also a valuable resource" and to spread the importance and meaning of practicing resource recycling in daily life.

* September 6th: "September (9)" and "6" are numbers that are upside downs to each other, representing the meaning of cycle

This year's Resource Recycling Day event will not hold a separate event due to social distancing from COVID-19. Instead, it will be promoted around online events in which all citizens and companies can participate.

First, the event to encourage the practice of resource recycling in daily life including "multi-cup use certification" and "Resource recycling pledge and certification" will be held until September 13th through the homepage for resource recycling practice (www.recycling-info.or.kr/act4r) and the Ministry of Environment's social network service.

After receiving a drink in a personal multi-use cup (tumbler) at a coffee shop or other beverage shops, you can either upload a certification photo on Facebook on the Resource Recycling Day or access the homepage for resource recycling practice, pledge to resource recycling practice and certify your practice to receive a prize through a lottery.

Also, in commemoration of the Resource Recycling Day, companies and local governments who have made great contributions to their resource recycling activities are also rewarded.

SPC pack, Korea South-East Power Company Yeosu Plant and Dongmin Industry Cooperative were selected as the "resource recycling leading and outstanding workplace'. The Office of Waterworks Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do and Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority were selected as the "excellent utilization organizations of recycled aggregates". 

McDonald Korea was selected as the "excellent organization for reducing packaging and disposable materials". Jung-gu, Ulsan Metropolitan City and Yangcheon-gu, Seoul Metropolitan City were selected as the "excellent organizations for food waste reduction".

On the other hand, the Ministry of Environment will sign a of "voluntary agreement to reduce excessive packaging materials" on September 4th with the manufacturing, import and distribution industries*.

* Seven manufacturing and import industry companies: Amorepacific, LG Household and Health Care, Aekyung, Yuhan Kimberly, P&G Korea, L'Oreal Korea and Henkel Homecare Korea

Three distribution industry companies: emart, Homeplus and Lotte Mart

This agreement is about active promotion of packaging material reduction by restraining the use of excessive packaging and reducing packaging materials through the use of paper bands and rings. 

Through this, packaging waste, which is rapidly increasing due to the recent COVID-19, can be preemptively reduced.

* About 298 tons of packaging wastes are expected to be reduced during October~December of 2020

"We need everyone's participation for the transition into a sustainable resource recycling society", said Minister Cho Myung-rae in his commemorative video address.

"We plan to focus on the "great transformation in resource recycling policy" with core contents such as reduction of waste throughout the entire process, reinforcement of publicity in waste treatment and adding values to the generated wastes", he added.