By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Consumers and small business runners are ignoring the government’s call to reduce the use of paper cups and other disposable products, according to the Ministry of Environment, Tuesday.
The government has made the use of disposable goods costlier by requiring customers to pay 50 won for a vinyl bag and 100 won for a paper bag at stores or shopping malls.
Also, coffee shops or fast-food stores charge customers 50- 100 won for a paper cup and gave them refund if they bring back the disposable cups. The collected money is currently used for environment protection.
The number of purchased disposable bags jumped 17 percent from a year earlier to 218 per 1,000 people in 2007. It’s a reversal from a fall to 197 in the second half of 2006 from 226 in 2005.
The consumption of paper cups at coffee shops and convenient stores has also increased. It said that 18 food and coffee shops, which agreed with the ministry to voluntarily reduce disposal goods consumption, reported that they sold a total of 45.43 million disposable cups last year, a 1 percent gain from a year earlier.
Also, refunded money for retrieved paper cups accounted for 36.7 percent total paper cup sales in 2007, down from 38.5 percent in the second half of 2006.
The ministry attributes the failure of its policy to the absence of enforcement on the regulations regarding disposable products.
``In the initial years of our campaign, nearly 20 percent of customers used their own shopping bags or carriers, but recently many people have stopped bringing their own bags,’’ a ministry official said. ``We are considering making it necessary for stores to collect a certain portion of disposable products to stop this trend.’’