South Korea’s Lotte Mart to Cut Single-Use Plastic 50% by 2025

(Bloomberg) -- One of the largest hypermarket chains in South Korea is aiming to reduce plastic and food waste in its stores and boost the use of recycled packaging.

Lotte Mart will cut single-use plastics by 50% by 2025 and will establish guidelines for using recycled materials in its branded products, the company said Monday.

Governments and corporations are responding to public pressure to reduce the use of plastics and stem the pollution caused through poor waste disposal and low recycling rates. More than 60 countries have introduced bans or taxes aimed at reducing plastic waste, as almost 80% of the material ever produced ends up in landfills or as pollution across landscapes and oceans.

Lotte Mart, a division of Lotte Shopping Co., also said it plans to reduce food waste within its stores by 30% by 2025 and increase the number of its outlets with solar generation systems by 2021 to 60 from 39.

Greenpeace Seoul, which welcomed the move as “a significant step forward,” urged the company to apply the same standards to its dozens of stores in Vietnam and Indonesia.

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