Mask makers face uncertain future in post-mandate world

People wear masks on a subway car in Seoul on Monday morning, the first day the mask mandate on public transportation was lifted. [YONHAP]

Monday’s lifting of the mask mandate on public transportation is deepening the concerns of pandemic-related businesses in Korea, especially mask companies.

The number of mask manufacturers in the country surged sharply during the pandemic era.

The figure rose from 137 in January 2020 to 1,159 in 2021 and to 1,616 in 2022, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

That number dropped to 1,463 this month as Korea began relaxing mask mandates, while the Korea Mask Industry Association claims there are only 480 mask-producing factories operating in the country right now.

“The market has declined so much that if it's a mask factory, you can't sell the property,” a real estate agent said.

Some mask factories in Seocheon, South Chungcheong have all halted operations with hardly any orders in place.

“I used to produce and export masks for medical technicians only, but I canceled such contracts and cooperated with the government to prevent the pandemic,” said a mask manufacturer who has been in the business since 2017.

“Now I have no idea what to do.”

Manufacturers blame the sharp rise in the number of mask producers partly on the Moon Jae-in administration’s easing of restrictions and encouragement of mask-producing businesses due to mask shortages when the Covid-19 pandemic started.

On March 6, 2020, Moon visited a mask manufacturer in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi and told the factory “not to worry and increase production sufficiently” since the government would purchase the remaining stocks of mask.

In early 2020, when Covid-19 hit the country, Korea was facing unstable supplies of masks due to the sudden appearance of the disease and the surge in confirmed cases.

The government even implemented a mask purchasing system due to supply shortages, allowing people to buy masks only on assigned days depending on their year of birth.

“As the state said it would purchase masks, traders began to recommend investing in the industry,” said the owner of a mask manufacturer in Nonsan, South Chungcheong.

“It is eventually the investor’s fault for making such a decision, but the government was also responsible for increasing supply unconditionally.”

Industry insiders say the government's ban on mask exports to ensure a stable domestic supply early on in the pandemic has had a boomerang effect on the market as exports have never recovered.

“Masks are still needed for disaster prevention in other countries despite a fall in domestic demand,” said Seok Ho-gil, head of the Korea Mask Industry Association.

“Sales to other countries need policy support.”

Masks pose a number of other questions to Korean society.

As indoor mask wearing is now optional, people face a dilemma — do you wear them or not? In recent polls in Korea, around 70 percent of people responded that they would keep their masks on indoors.

The environment is another concern.

The main ingredient in single use masks is polypropylene (PP), which takes around 450 years to completely decay. This means masks that are discarded this year will decompose entirely by 2473.

Some 20 million masks on average were thrown away a day in 2021, according to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. This means 7.3 billion masks are discarded a year, with 21.9 billion thrown away over the past three years.

“The number of masks used will decrease in the future, but now is the time to settle on a direction on dealing with the masks with which we've all become so familiar,” said Hong Su-yeol, director of the Resource Recycle Consulting.

BY CHAE HYE-SON, CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]