Korea mandates toy recycling starting January, holding producers accountable

The Ministry of Environment announced part of the amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources, which adds toys to the list of items subject to the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system, on the 9th.

Under this amendment, businesses manufacturing or importing plastic toys will be required to collect and recycle the items according to the recycling obligation rate calculated and announced annually by the Ministry of Environment, starting from Jan. 1 of next year.

However, manufacturers with an annual sales volume of less than 1 billion won or an output of less than 10 tons, and importers with an import value of less than 300 million won or a volume of less than 3 tons, will be exempted from the collection and recycling obligations.

Introduced in 2003, the EPR system has, for over 20 years, imposed waste collection and recycling obligations on producers of packaging materials in four categories, 24 types of products (such as fluorescent lamps and aquaculture buoys), and 50 types of electrical and electronic products.

When bound by the recycling obligations under the Extended Producer Responsibility system, the producer's responsibility expands beyond the manufacturing stage to include recycling waste generated after use.

In the future, toy producers will have to fulfill recycling obligations under the Extended Producer Responsibility system by paying recycling charges to an association set up for jointly performing recycling operations. This association will use the fees collected to support the collection and recycling of discarded toys by providing them to recycling companies.

Manufacturers and importers of toys subject to the Extended Producer Responsibility system will have to pay new recycling support fees. However, the existing waste charges previously imposed by the government will be exempted. As a result, the toy industry's annual expense burden is expected to decrease from 4.2 billion won to 3.5 billion won.

Kim Go-eung, Director General of the Resource Circulation Bureau at the Ministry of Environment, explained, “This amendment aims to assign recycling obligations to toy producers closely related to the public's daily life to curb the incineration and landfill of plastics and to promote resource circulation.”