The Ministry of Environment (Minister Kim Sunghwan) announced that it will sign a business agreement on July 29 at the Air Force Headquarters (located in Gyeryong-si, Chungcheongnam-do) with the Air Force (Chief of Staff Lee Young-su) and the Korea Resource Circulation Service Agency (KORA, Chairman Lee Myung-hwan) to promote resource recycling.

Military bases, where large-scale personnel and resources are concentrated, are required to play a leading role in waste management, and cooperation in recycling within the military is essential to address plastic pollution and transition to a circular economy.

The Air Force has also expressed a strong willingness to actively participate in promoting recycling and has decided to cooperate with the Ministry of Environment, taking into account the entire resource recycling cycle from the separation of recyclable materials to the use of recycled products.

The agreement specifically includes: support for dedicated collection facilities for paper packs and transparent PET bottles at Air Force units; use of recycled products produced through the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system; resource recycling education for service members; and evaluation and reward support for outstanding units.

Kim Go-eung, Director General of the Resource Circulation Bureau at the Ministry of Environment, stated, “The cooperation of approximately 65,000 Air Force personnel is expected to play a role in ensuring a stable supply of recycled materials and driving demand in the recycling market.” He added, “We will actively support the creation of a circular economy ecosystem within military bases.”

Park Geun-woo, Chief of the Air Force Engineering Office, stated, "This is significant in strengthening environmental management at the military level and creating a sustainable defense environment." He also emphasized, “We will do our best to raise awareness of resource recycling among service members and achieve tangible recycling outcomes.”

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