Over 1,000 Complaints Posted on Deposit Management Center Board
Cafe Owners Demand Comprehensive System Overhaul During Grace Period
[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The Ministry of Environment decided to postpone the implementation of the disposable cup deposit system due to strong opposition from self-employed business owners, but the backlash is intense. Franchise owners must bear all the tasks and costs, including purchasing label stickers to attach to cups to verify deposit returns, collecting and storing returned cups, and paying 300 won per cup as a return fee. The cost of stickers to be attached to each cup is about 17 won, so a franchise owner selling 500 drinks a day would have to bear more than 270,000 won per month. As a result, refund requests from franchise owners who purchased labels in advance ahead of the implementation are pouring in.
According to the industry on the 25th, requests from franchise owners to refund label fees paid in advance have been continuous on the Resource Circulation Deposit Management Center's bulletin board. Including protest posts demanding the abolition of the disposable cup deposit system, there were 1,082 related posts as of 7 a.m. that day. Following the Ministry of Environment's policy that label delivery takes about three weeks after prepayment to the deposit management center, the main administrative agency, franchise owners directly paid the label purchase fees to the deposit management center on the 18th, before the decision to postpone the system implementation was made.
The disposable cup deposit system requires consumers to pay a 300 won deposit when purchasing drinks in plastic cups at cafes, which is refunded when the cup is returned. The Ministry of Environment planned to implement the system from the 10th of next month to increase the collection rate of disposable cups and reduce plastic use, but decided to postpone it for six months due to strong opposition from small business owners and political pressure. Therefore, franchise owners who had prepared in advance for the implementation date are left bewildered.
A franchise owner A (41 years old) operating a mid-priced franchise cafe in Jung-gu, Seoul, said, "I never thought the policy would be postponed and broke a savings account to pay over 3 million won for label costs," adding, "From the perspective of small business owners, it is not a small amount, so as soon as I heard about the postponement, I tried to request a refund, posted on the deposit management center's board, and even had a difficult phone call with someone in charge at the Ministry of Environment, but I only received a brief answer saying 'We will refund within a month,' which is frustrating."
Franchise owners argue that since the system implementation has been delayed by six months, the system should be thoroughly revised within that period. Go Jang-su, director of the National Cafe Owners Cooperative, said, "The cost of producing sticker labels and return fees are borne by the franchise owners, which seems to impose excessive responsibility and costs on them," adding, "While I agree with the purpose of protecting the environment, policies that unilaterally force responsibility only on franchise owners need to be revised and supplemented."
Franchise owners emphasize that a system should be established where cups can be returned through community centers or unmanned vending machines so that self-employed business owners do not have to collect them directly. Some have even suggested that franchise headquarters should initially engrave barcode labels on cups when manufacturing them.
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