• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.201-210
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• 2022

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the most commonly used fresh food refrigeration insulation in Korea and Europe. Moreover, as the use of disposable packaging materials has increased significantly along with non-face-to-face delivery services since the COVID-19 crisis, social issues related to waste disposal are also being raised. Therefore, in this study, the life cycle of EPS boxes for fresh food is focused on the factors that have a large difference between incineration and landfill including recycling in Europe and Korea in the disposal process after use, and raw materials and energy in the manufacturing process, which account for a large portion of the environmental impact value. We tried to compare the environmental impact of evaluation. Overall, the raw material production stage, box manufacturing stage, and packaging stage have similar processes in Europe and Korea, but unlike Europe, Korea, which lacks landfills and incineration facilities, has focused on expanding the recycling rate. It was necessary to do an environmental impact assessment. Data affecting the environment were derived based on 2019 and 2020 data for Korea and 2017 and 2020 data for Europe. In order to predict the future environmental impact assessment, assumptions about the disposal rate in 2025 and 2030 were introduced and evaluated. As a result of this study, it was found that the raw material production stage of EPS boxes, which have similar processes in both Korea and Europe, has the greatest effect on the global warming effect of Korean EPS boxes. However, Korea, which has a relatively high recycling rate in the disposal process compared to incineration and landfill, showed better environmental performance than Europe in most impact indicators except freshwater eutrophication. In particular, Korea has increased the overall recycling rate compared to Europe by replacing various recyclable materials such as building materials and sundries with XPS (extruded polystyrene) recycled materials. In conclusion, it was found that increasing the recycling rate rather than incinerating and landfilling EPS boxes for fresh food in the domestic EPS industry has relatively less environmental load compared to Europe.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.16 no.1 s.75
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• pp.15-27
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• 2007

The Korean Auto industry has developed remarkably over the past 30 years. In 2005 alone, Korea produced 3.7 million vehicles, and the number of vehicles registered surpassed the 15 million marks. The rapid growth in registration, however, has given increasing problems to the traffic congestion and the environmental pollution. The system for handling of ELV in Korea is governed by the 'Motor management law'. The law places the responsibility for vehicle scrapping directly on the vehicle owners. The take-back rate of ELV reaches nearly 100% in Korea since 1987. To further entourage recycling, the government introduced the extended producer responsibility system(EPRS) starting January 1, 2003, which imposes waste recycling obligations on producers or importers. According to the system, producers must recycle home appliances and packaging materials. This system, however, did not involve the automobiles. In 2006, the automobiles recycling law is under preparing now by the government. This article is concerning current status for End-of-Life vehicle's recycling and the recycling system model for advanced ELV industries in Korea.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.12-21
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• 1997

Plastics waste constitutes approximately 23% by volume of the municipal solid waste(MSW) generated in the U.S. each year, and have slow rate of degradation in the environment. Therefore, there is a great deal of public pressure to recycle plastics, and more than 100 million people participate in the curbside recycling programs. Despite the high level of public interest, only 3.5% of the plastic are recycled, which is substantially lower than the recycle rates of other materials such as paper fibers, glass, and iron. Although a large part of the reason is due to the low price of virgin polymers, which in turn is due to the low price of oil, it is possible to make the plastics recycling as a profitable business by developing advanced technologies. In this communication, various methods of separating pplastics from metals and from each other are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Resources Recycling Conference
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• 2001.05b
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• pp.95-99
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Resources Recycling Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.227-231
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• 2005

• Resources Recycling
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.16-26
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• 2015

This study aims to suggest possible policy options for collection of post-consumer diapers as a sustainable prerequisite to implementation of public recycling system with the desktop monitoring results and analysis of collection cost involved. By conducting a diaper collection pilot test on daycare centers and households in the Seoul Nowon-gu, this study revealed that the odor issues did not stand out as an important hindering factor and that the collection rate was the largest contributing factor regarding collection costs. The exploratory cost analysis result shows that the implemented recycling system must guarantee collection rate over 50% via twice-a-week collection frequency, to be comparable or even superior to the current food waste collection cost. Also the pilot demonstration test showed that the final collection rate can be achieved as much as over 50%. The promising data thus obtained cost economically viable future diaper recycling system implementation in the entire Seoul metropolis and adjacent areas of dense population. With the concomitant development of recycling technology and related infrastructure for systematic collection of diaper waste, it makes our society much more sustainable.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.123-159
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• 2013

We use a multi-regional dynamic computable general equilibrium model to explain an economic effect of $CO_2$ tax on the national and regional economy of Korea. First, we compare two $CO_2$ taxes: a region-specific $CO_2$ tax and a uniform $CO_2$ tax. In the region-specific tax, the $CO_2$ tax rate in the capital area and the south-eastern region is much greater than those in other regions. GDP loss resulting from the region-specific tax is bigger than that in the uniform tax. Second, we consider three options for tax recycling: consumption tax recycling, labor-income tax recycling, and corporate-income tax recycling. The corporate-income tax recycling has the least GDP-loss effect over the three options. These results support that it is more efficient to use a uniform $CO_2$ tax rate than a region-specific $CO_2$ tax rate and that the corporate-income tax recycling is more desirable in a sense of efficiency than the consumption and labor-income tax recycling options.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.129-140
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• 2012

The objective of this study was to estimate the practical recycling rate of plastic products, so that the study was conducted to build material flow diagram for PVC profile. For this objective, product generation, waste generation and recycling status were investigated. Using collected and analyzed status data, analysis of material flow by product and building material flow diagram were conducted. As result of estimating the recycling rate by product, The sum of domestic demand was 525,448 ton and waste generation was 105,853ton in PVC flooring and profile. The sum of generation of recycling product and raw material was investigated to be 76,004ton(14.46%), which is higher compared to recycling obligation(8.5%) in 2009. To build the material flow diagram in the years(5~20years) ahead, prediction of future demand was based on the assumption that there will be no difference in annual generation of current and future. As the recycling rate of flooring and profile increases, it is estimated to reach 20% in 2013 according to the material flow diagram.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.13-22
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• 2016

This study is aimed at compare and evaluate the environmental impact of End-of-Life Vehicle(ELV) on the eco-friendly technology dismantling and recycling system, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. In this study, it was analyzed for the environmental impacts of raw materials, disassemble process, recycle parts separation and waste treatment into the process of ELV treatment by greenhouse gas and resource consumption, etc. Through this study, the indoor rail type dismantling technology were recycling rate applied on the alternate system was increased by approximately 8%. As a result, it was 3 to 88% by improving the environmental impact category. In addition, the added benefit of approximately 8 - 62% in pre-market occurred through the recycling rate, improve parts reuse rate of ELV. Through the results of this study, legal compliance, improved reuse and recycling ratio, used parts market reach, enable exports has identified the need for the effort that the dissemination and diffusion of eco-friendly technology.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.247-250
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• 2009

Awareness of resource conservation and pollution prevention has been continually increasing. The proven benefits from CFRP's unique combination of light weight and high strength compare to conventional material is well suited for minimizing fuel consumption during vehicle in particular rail operation. Responding the awareness, this work intends to study CFRP's recycling method that is not only technical performance but also environmental view point. According to prior work of technical performance test, this work aims at quantifying the footprint of energy and GHG derived from the two appreciated performance of pyrolysis and acids recycling methods. The streamline LCA is the concept for systematic assessment. The boundary is scoped at the recycling activity, consequently, the data in and out from the specific target activity are obtained under the gate to gate data collection. Its function is recovery carbon fiber. To count and compare function, functional unit is set at 60% of recycling rate. Korea database is mainly source for acquiring the footprint of both. The numerical results presented that the energy footprint of acids and pyrolysis is 164.95 and 1,199.88 MJ-eq., respectively. Meantime, the GHG footprint of is 1,196.22 and 5,916.08 g CO2 eq. for acids and pyrolysis. In summary, the acids recycling method is, in regarding the environmental performance, better than pyrolysis recycling method.