From June 10 of this year, the disposable cup deposit system will be implemented for major coffee shops and fast food restaurants across the country to include a resource circulation deposit of 300 won per disposable cup in the product price.
The Ministry of Environment announced that it would give advance notice of legislation for 40 days from the 25th of the three sub-laws in the field of resource circulation, including the ‘Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources’ containing these contents.
The disposable cup deposit system is applied to 38,000 stores nationwide. Coffee shops such as Ediya, Starbucks and A Twosome Place △ Bakery and bakery stores such as Dunkin Donuts, Paris Baguette, and Tous Les Jours △ Fast food stores such as Lotteria, Mom’s Touch, McDonald’s, Burger King △ Ice cream and shaved ice stores such as Baskin Robbins and Sulbing △ Gongcha, It includes stores operated by more than 100 businesses nationwide, including other beverage stores such as Smoothie King and Juicy.
Disposable cups subject to the deposit system are mainly plastic cups for cold drinks and paper cups for hot drinks.
Consumers pay a deposit when purchasing beverages in disposable cups, and return the cups to the store where they purchased the beverage or another store to get the deposit back. You can conveniently get your deposit back at any store that accepts the deposit system, and you can get your deposit back even if you pick up a disposable cup left on the street and return it to the store.
The deposit is paid in the way the consumer prefers, either by bank transfer or cash. In the case of account transfer, it is transferred to your account through the pre-installed mobile application (app) after a few minutes to up to an hour through computerized processing between the store-deposit system-financial institution, and in the case of cash payment, you can receive it directly at the store.
When the cup is brought to the store to receive the deposit back, the deposit is returned by recognizing the barcode attached to the cup with a POS device that can read barcodes. Therefore, even if the cup is returned once, it is recognized that it is not subject to deposit payment, so double return is not possible.
The Ministry of Environment designates standard specifications so that cups can be stacked for convenience in storage and transportation because the deposit can be returned even if cups purchased at different franchise stores are returned. To ensure that the cups recovered from the store can be recycled appropriately, 3-5 collection companies will be designated for each region.
Reporter Junhee Lee jhlee@etnews.com
