CityNet attended the EU-Korea Plastic Waste Management Workshop that was held on 24th September 2019 in Seoul. The event was co-hosted by EU-Korea Climate Action project and Korea Zero Waste Movement Network, and sponsored by the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Korea. The aim of the workshop was to share the European Union’s plastic waste management strategies, policies and innovative techniques which has the potential to contribute to Korea’s plastic waste reduction.
The workshop featured remarks from the EU-Korea Climate Action Project team, Korea’s Ministry of Environment and Seoul National University’s Green Eco Engineering Lab. EU Cases on plastic waste reduction were also showcased by the BASF, the European Investment Bank and the European Environmental Bureau, in addition to Business Practices in Korea from Samsung, CI EcoTech, and Lush. Lastly, a Panel Discussion about the corporate roles and responsibilities for effective plastic waste management, Korea’s waste levy system, and effective ways to induce demand for recycled products was also carried out.
CityNet has previously built a relationship with Europe through the World Cities Project funded by the EU. The World Cities Project took place between 2017-2018 in order to facilitate city-to-city (C2C) cooperation between four Korean and four European cities, with three of the four participating Korean cities being full members of CityNet. The city pairs, consisting of Busan/Barcelona, Gwangju/Tampere, Seoul/Eindhoven and Suwon/Scotland Europa, partnered for European study visits relevant to the topics of climate change, urban regeneration, smart city, and urban economy. The project concluded with the conference in 2018 hosted by Busan city with the promises to strengthen the EU- Korea cooperation on sustainable urban development.
The EU-Korea Plastic Waste Management workshop served as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between the EU and CityNet, paving the way to further C2C exchange of policies, skills, and technologies regarding plastic waste management tackling climate change and meeting the SDGs.
