Are There Safety Concerns as South Korea Mandates Recycled Plastic Packaging for Bottled Water and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Starting 2026?

In the production workshop of the Jeju Samdo Water Plant in Jeju Island, plastic water bottles are moving orderly along the conveyor belt. Recently, the South Korean Ministry of Environment announced that the government has decided in a cabinet meeting to mandate that bottled water and non-alcoholic beverage producers use recycled plastic in their packaging starting from 2026.

According to the new regulations, at least 10% of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) materials used in bottled products must come from recycled resources. This regulation applies to beverage companies that use more than 5,000 tons of PET bottles annually. Among approximately 200 beverage manufacturers in South Korea, 10 major companies—including Coca-Cola Korea, Lotte Chilsung Beverage, and Jeju Development Company (producer of Samdasoo water)—will be the first to implement the regulation starting from January 1, 2026.

Previously, South Korea only required plastic manufacturers to use recycled materials, while beverage companies were exempt from purchasing recycled raw materials. This policy gap led to a situation where, despite South Korea recycling a large number of waste PET bottles, a "bottle-to-bottle" closed-loop recycling system was not established, making it difficult to effectively reduce plastic waste, carbon emissions, and dependence on virgin plastics.

The long-term obstacle to "bottle-to-bottle" recycling lies in safety concerns. Food-grade PET requires strict control of chemical migration risks, while the purity and stability of recycled plastics are often questioned due to differences in raw material sources and processing methods. Companies are also worried that recycled materials may affect bottle transparency, odor, and beverage taste. In response, a Ministry of Environment official confirmed to the Korea Herald that the recycling standards developed jointly with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety have verified that recycled PET processed through government-certified procedures such as sorting, cleaning, shredding, and remolding, even for colored bottles, meets safety and quality requirements for food contact.

In fact, as early as April 2023, Seoul took the lead in applying recycled plastics to the manufacturing of containers for its bottled tap water brand, Arisu. The Ministry of Environment emphasized that the new regulations are in line with global trends—both the European Union and Germany plan to mandate a 30% recycled content in PET bottles by 2030, while the United Kingdom aims to achieve the same target by 2026. In the future, this policy will be gradually expanded to eventually cover companies with an annual output of over 1,000 tons of PET bottles, and by 2030, the required proportion of recycled materials will be raised from 10% to 30%.

This policy shift marks a key step for South Korea in building a circular economy and reducing plastic pollution, responding to international environmental trends while providing a clear path for the green transformation of the domestic beverage industry.