In South Korea, two convenience stores have announced that they will switch to eco-friendly dosirak as the country works to reduce plastic waste.
CU’s to-go containers will launch Wednesday and is produced by replacing 40% of the box’s plastic content with biomass material based on coconut waste. According to the chain, this speeds up degradation. “The eco-friendly packages cost 20 to 30 percent more than the ones we use now, but the company decided to use them in order to live up to our corporate responsibility in line with the national agenda of protecting the environment,” BGF Retail, CU’s parent company, tells Korea Joongang Daily.
Meanwhile, GS25’s dosirak will be made from biobased polypropylene. “The amount of dosirak packages sold last year was enough to cover approximately 1,460 soccer fields when spread out,” GS Retail said in a statement. “The new versions will push down plastic usage by 40 percent, which means if calculated in the same way, it will cut about 580 soccer fields worth of plastic.”
South Korea has vowed to cut plastic waste in half by 2030.