South Korea’s Baedal Minjok to trial reusable food containers for delivery

Baedal Minjok, one of the leading food delivery services in South Korea, is testing reusable food containers in response to the city's call to minimize the use of plastic and disposable food packaging.

Baedal Minjok's trial is currently ongoing in Seoul's Gangnam District, which is considered the country's finance and fashion hub. The capital city has called on businesses to reduce the use of containers that cannot be disposed of easily. The move is also to lessen the garbage that the local government had to collect frequently.

As mentioned in Aju Business Daily, Seoul said that in 2021, the city used around 54 million disposable containers every month thus, it launched a project in an effort to reduce waste.

In new data that was released by the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) in February this year, it showed that a customer who often orders food for delivery produces around 11 kilos or 24 pounds of plastic waste per year.

The officials pointed out that only 45% of the food packaging used in the deliveries were recyclable. Food delivery services experienced a boom in the food business due to the COVID-19 pandemic since people were not allowed to go out of their homes. However, the trend created a huge amount of waste, and most of them are now recyclable, which is the biggest downside.

In an effort to help with the city's campaign for waste and plastic reduction, Baedal Minjok launched its pilot project where reusable food containers are used when delivering food orders. If the results are satisfactory, the company is likely to permanently implement the use of reusables.

Moreover, the pilot run is set to be expanded to add more districts, such as Gwangjin and Gwanak. Most of the university campuses are also being targeted to participate in the trial. The city will be installing reusable container boxes in the schools to raise awareness among the students.

"This service will attract customers who find it hard to get rid of leftovers after eating delivered food," an official at the Seoul office told Aju Business Daily. "Customers can leave leftover food in reusable containers and deliverymen will take care of it."