A month ago, Seoul's trade ministry said that South Korea has asked Turkey to provide compensation for the European nation's provisional safeguard measures on polyethylene terephthalate imports. According to the free trade agreement between the two sides, when an increase in imports of any product is causing damages to domestic industry, bilateral safeguard measures which allow the temporary suspension of tariff preferences or imposing most-favored nation applied tariff line are applied.

▲ A great number of plastics are piled

Waste plastic is trash or garbage of many types of plastic. Each country has a waste plastic industry, and they import waste plastic from other countries or export their waste plastics. Until 2017, China had imported more than 40 percent of waste plastics worldwide. However, China ceased to import them. Then, waste plastics in the world are piling up now. Some nations should import waste plastics or reduce the number of them.

▲ Caribbean Sea`s trash ocean

After China stopped importing of waste plastics, waste plastics have been imported by Southeast Asia nations. Naturally, Korea's importing country of waste plastics became Southeast Asia nations such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. However, there is no country that can endure a large amount of waste plastic. On August, Thailand also ceased to import it. Then, the price of waste plastic became lower, so many waste plastic companies try to import. However, if they import so many waste plastics, their country will also stop the import. Like this, the waste plastic problem is so complex. As an aspect of the environment, not using waste plastic is the best way. WEF warned that the number of plastic became higher than the number of fish in the ocean. It is obvious that we must reduce the use of waste plastic.

▲ Plastic disposal plant in Suwon

Many countries are considering the plastic problem. Japanese Ministry of Environment makes a policy of supporting half the cost of purchasing waste plastic recycling facilities. American Energy, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, aims to gain energy from the wind alone starting in 2020. Nowadays, many waste plastics are moving all over the world, but we should be cautious about using waste plastic.

Dec. 23, 2018
by Baek Jong Won