Advanced Strategy for plastic wastes to response to the Basel Convention

Since joined in the Basel Convention in 1994, South Korea has established policies and strategies to minimize risks to human health and the environment caused by hazardous wastes and other wastes

by Young-Yeul Kang *, Na-Hyeon Cho, Ji-Yeon Kim, Young-Sam Yoon, Tae-Wan Jeon

Abstract

Since joined in the Basel Convention in 1994, South Korea has established policies and strategies to minimize risks to human health and the environment caused by hazardous wastes and other wastes, and participated in the Conference of the Parties to deliberate and adopt amendments to the Basel Convention and its annexes and protocols.

In this presentation, we summarized the issues that Korea needs to respond to from the discussed items in various fields, such as Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment(WEEE) and End of Life Vehicles(ELV) at the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal Fifteenth meeting(COP-15) held in April 2022, and also our future commitment plan to response the Basel decision briefly. In addition, we would like to introduce recently domestic policy trends such as ‘Master Plan for Resource Circulation (2018 to 2027)’, ‘De-Plastic Measures’ and the challenges of the current plastic waste management system as well as the future direction of plastic waste which is referred to as the main culprit of environmental pollution such as marine plastic litter and microplastics in the world.

Keywords: Basel Convention, WEEE, ELV, Plastic waste

References

Ministry of Environment (2018). Master Plan for Resource Circulation (2018 to 2027).
Ministry of Environment (2020). De-Plastic Measures.
15 th COP of Basel Conference (2022). UNEP/CHW.15/CRP.1~37 [Extracted June 30, 2022]

published: Korea Society of Waste Management, 11|2022
Keywords: WEEE - Batteries, Plastics, Korea (Republic of)

Dr. Young-Sam Yoon
National Institute of Environmental Research, Ministry of Environment