[The Hwankyung Ilbo] It is not allowed to use disposable plastic bags in supermarkets over 165 ㎡in size, including over 2,000 large-sized marts nationwide.

The Ministry of Environment announced that a revised bill on the Enforcement Rules of the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources to curb the use of plastic bags took effect on January 1, 2019.

Under the law, the use of plastic bags has been be banned from large stores (about 2,000 large-sized stores) and supermarkets (11,000 supermarkets with 165 ㎡ or more spaces in size) in Korea from January 1, 2019.

These stores should use reusable standard plastic garbage bags, shopping bags, and paper bags as substitutes for disposable plastic bags.

The annual volume of plastic bags per person is approximately 414 (as of 2015) and about 20kg of greenhouse gas per person (47.5g CO₂ per one plastic bag) is emitted.

The Ministry of Environment plans to encourage the related industries to voluntarily reduce the use of disposable products (such as plastic bags) by concluding agreements and plans to continuously review measures to curb the use of non-regulatory products such as straws through consumer awareness and market research.

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