Local festivals reduce waste by switching to reusable products

Visitors return their reusable cutlery and food containers to a collection stand. [YEONGSAN RIVER BASIN ENVIRONMENTAL OFFICE]

Major local festivals are aiming to cut down their waste.

One such festival is the Gwangyang Maehwa Festival. Held in South Jeolla, it is one of the biggest maehwa, or plum blossom, festivals in Korea, garnering over a million visitors annually.

This year’s festival began on March 8 and ended on March 17.

The festival removed single-use products, such as plastic cups and utensils, in an attempt to reduce waste this year.

In previous years, the festival produced copious amounts of plastic waste and trash, which was difficult to process and discard. Visitors also complained that accumulated heaps of garbage ruined the scenery.

A Gwangyang official said the city government “notified booth operators that single-use products were prohibited and prepared 50,000 reusable products per day,” adding that local officials “even replaced paper cups with glass soju cups for sample drinks.”

Visitors were provided food in reusable containers, such as plates and bowls, which they later had to return.

The results were immediate.

According to Gwangyang, the first weekend of the festival produced 2,020 kilograms (4,454 pounds) of waste, or 63 percent less than the garbage produced during the festivall’s first weekend last year, which produced 5,400 kilograms of waste.

“I think restricting single-use products was a good [move] as it seemed to reduce the amount of trash and kept the festival area cleaner,” a visitor told the JoongAng Ilbo.

Waste was not the festival's only issue.

“We tried to find various solutions to resolve traffic and parking problems arising from the festival,” Kim Sung-soo, an official from Gwangyang city government's tourism department, said.

Price-gauging is one of the main complaints at festivals nationwide.

To address this, the Gwangyang festival organizers questioned booth operators regarding how they intended to price their products as part of their selection criteria.

This effectively created more affordable meal options. This year, a nickel-silver lunch box filled with five types of Korean side dishes went for 5,000 won ($3.70) and quickly sold out.

The Gurye Sansuyu Festival and other local festivals held in South Jeolla are also trying to switch to reusable products, in line with the central government and South Jeolla's initiative to run festivals without single-use products.

The central government and South Jeolla provincial government plan to support 22 regional festivals by establishing a system to distribute reusable products as well as collection and clean-up services afterward.

“Recently, more people are looking for reusable products due to microplastic issues,” said Park Yeon-jae, the head of the Yeongsan River Basin Environmental Office under the Environment Ministry. “Based on this year’s pilot projects, we plan to expand and make all the festivals held in the Honam region [Gwangju and Jeolla provinces] environmentally friendly.”

BY CHEON KWON-PIL,KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]