A person puts an aluminum can into a recycling bin. Courtesy of Lee Sang-yoon
By Park Jae-hyuk
Korean consumers' lack of awareness of the infinite recyclability of aluminum cans is one of the major obstacles to the country's recycling of the products.
Novelis Korea, the local subsidiary of the world's largest aluminum recycler, said Tuesday that its survey showed that 57.4 percent of 1,012 respondents were unaware of the infinite recyclability of aluminum cans and that recycling aluminum can reduce 95 percent of carbon emissions compared to producing aluminum from natural bauxite.
The survey was jointly conducted with the Seoul Korea Federation for Environmental Movements on the occasion of Global Recycling Day, which fell on Tuesday, March 18.
The lack of awareness appears to have led consumers here to choose plastic bottles as the most preferred beverage packaging material over aluminum cans, glass bottles and paper cartons, given that 84.1 percent of the respondents expressed willingness to choose beverages in aluminum cans, after realizing their infinite recyclability.
According to Novelis Korea, aluminum is theoretically 100 percent recyclable without losing quality, unlike plastic and other metals, which degrade after repeated recycling. It only takes 60 days to recycle used cans into new ones.
However, the company pointed out that only 30 percent of collected cans in Korea are recycled into new ones, as poor sorting practices result in decreased recycling quality, with most cans downgraded to lower-quality aluminum products or used as deoxidizers in steel production.
Against this backdrop, the survey proved that policies to raise awareness of the recyclability of aluminum cans were necessary.
When asked if they would choose aluminum-can packaged products with labels showing it used over 80 percent recycled aluminum, 89.1 percent of the respondents answered yes.
Additionally, 88.1 percent of the respondents expressed a willingness to separately dispose of aluminum cans despite the inconvenience, while 89.6 percent said that they would use a nearby aluminum reverse vending machine.
Eight out of 10 respondents supported a deposit system for cans. When asked about an appropriate deposit amount, 32.8 percent of the respondents preferred 50 won ($0.04), followed by 30 won (27.6 percent), 100 won (26.8 percent) and 10 won (12.8 percent).
"In order to reduce carbon emissions and preserve natural resources, it is critical to improve infrastructure and policies for collecting aluminum cans and ensuring 'can-to-can' recycling," Lee Dong-yi, secretary-general of the Seoul Korea Federation for Environmental Movements, said.
English (United States) ·