President Moon Jae-in is calling for active measures to reduce the amount of plastic waste and ways to improve waste collection services.
During a Cabinet meeting this morning, the president referred to the recent waste management crisis in apartment complexes of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do Province as a number of private recycling companies had refused to retrieve plastic and foam waste.
This was due to China's decision to ban waste imports in January, which caused the value of the resources to plunge.
He said the government could have predicted the drop in demand for plastic waste in advance as Beijing had announced its decision last July.
Meanwhile, President Moon met with his Slovakian counterpart Andrej Kiska for a bilateral summit shortly after the Cabinet meeting.