Recently, the price of polyethylene, the material for standard garbage bags, has also risen a lot. This price increase is known to be caused by unstable naphtha supply and demand. So this rise in raw material prices is also being reflected in contract unit prices between local governments and companies. But this adjustment does not immediately lead to a price increase for the bags that citizens buy. The article explained that the share of bag production cost in the bag price is not very large. In other words, even if raw material prices go up, the change in the final price paid by consumers may be limited. However, in some areas and on the ground, panic buying and sold-out situations are happening. Because of this situation, administrative agencies and related companies are watching the supply and demand situation more carefully. In the end, the key point of this news is that raw materials and contract unit prices are rising, but bag prices are not increasing.
원문 보기You have to buy ramen to buy a trash bag?
In April 2026, something strange is happening in Korean marts and convenience stores. volume-rate trash bags are being sold taped to packs of 5 ramen. If you want to buy only the bag, you cannot. You have to buy ramen to get the bag. One mart in Ulsan even announced, 'If you do not buy other items, we cannot sell you the bag.'
After checking 16 places in Seoul, 11 places (69%) were sold out or let people buy only 1 to 3 bags. In Namdong-gu, Incheon, daily sales exploded to 7~8 times the usual amount. At big marts, even the free plastic bags for fruit disappeared, so people even saw apples rolling around one by one in shopping carts.
Why is this happening? Because of the Middle East war, the supply of naphtha, a by-product of crude oil, was cut off, and factories making the bags started reducing production because of losses. The government said, "There is enough stock," but the real situation was the complete opposite.
You probably did not know that one trash bag had so many stories inside it. Why the bags are sold out, what the price of a 490 won bag really means, and why Korea made this kind of bag system — I will explain them one by one.
3/31 President Lee Jae-myung: "There is enough stock. Find the people who spread false rumors and punish them strictly"
4/1 morning Minister Kim Seong-hwan (radio): "Maybe we need a purchase limit per person like masks"
4/1 afternoon Blue House: "The President instructed not to do purchase limits. There was no discussion and no review"
4/2 Minister Kim Seong-hwan (radio): "We decided not to do it" — a 180-degree turn in just one day
Masks, urea solution, and trash bags
This is not the first time that a certain item suddenly disappeared in Korea. Do you see the common point?
| Category | 2020 masks | 2021 urea solution | 2026 volume-based waste bags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cause | COVID-19 pandemic | China urea export ban | Middle East war → naphtha supply cut |
| Overseas dependency | Made in China 80% | Made in China 97% | Made in Middle East 60~83% |
| Government response | 5-day rotation system (2 per person) | Emergency imports from Australia | Contract unit price increase (purchase limit withdrawn) |
| Confusion point | "You do not need to wear masks" | "Enough" → right before logistics paralysis | Minister "Need limits" vs Blue House "We will not do it" |
From crude oil to trash bags — five steps
To make one trash bag, the process starts from oil fields in the Middle East. It is a longer journey than you think.
Step 1: Crude oil → naphtha
When crude oil is heated to 140~180°C in a huge distillation tower, a light oil called naphtha separates out. It has almost the same components as gasoline, but when it is sent to a chemical factory instead of going into an engine, it is called 'naphtha.' Korea imports more than 60% of this naphtha from the Middle East (83% for small and medium companies).
Step 2: Naphtha → ethylene
When naphtha is heated to over 850°C in an NCC(naphtha cracking facility), the carbon chains break apart and ethylene comes out. Ethylene is the starting point for plastic, vinyl, and synthetic fiber, so it is called the 'rice of petrochemicals.'
Step 3: Ethylene → polyethylene(PE)
If ethylene molecules are linked together under high pressure again and again (polymerization), they become polyethylene(PE). Plastic bags, wrap, vinyl gloves, and greenhouses are all made from this. Volume-based waste bags mainly use flexible LDPE(low-density polyethylene).
Step 4: PE film → plastic bag
Polyethylene is drawn into a thin film, then cut and folded into a bag shape. About 40% recycled waste vinyl raw material from separated disposal is mixed in here. In March 2026, a problem happened at this stage — as the LDPE price jumped 15~30% in just one month, the more they made, the more money they lost.
Step 5: Printing → volume-based waste bag complete
When the area name, volume, and other details are printed using a special copper plate kept by the local government, the volume-based waste bag is complete. One interesting fact — this bag is legally an official document. If you fake it, you can be punished for forgery of an official document (Supreme Court 2005도7430)!
Naphtha price doubled in just two months
Move your mouse over the dots. After the war started on February 28, the price shot up vertically.
The secret of the 490 won bag
In Seoul, one 20L volume-based waste bag costs 490 KRW. But did you know this 490 KRW is not really the 'bag price'? Actually, this is not the bag cost but the 'fee for using the waste disposal service.'
The price of a volume-based waste bag has 4 parts. Collection and transport cost (cost of operating garbage trucks), incoming treatment cost (incinerator and landfill fees), bag production cost (actual cost of PE film), and store profit (mart and supermarket margin). Among these, the cost to make the bag is only one part of the total.
So even if the naphtha price jumps 2 times, the consumer price of the bag does not go up right away. That is because the bag's production cost is a small part of the total. The real problem is on the manufacturer side — the supply price is fixed under a yearly contract with the Public Procurement Service, but raw material costs are soaring, so the more they make, the more money they lose. That is why factories started lowering their operation rate to 60%.
Even more surprising is the history of this price. Seoul has kept 490 KRW frozen for 7 years since 2018, and the national average for 20L bags rose only 28% over 20 years, from 394 KRW in 2003 to 505 KRW in 2023. That is far below the consumer price inflation rate during the same period.
The price of volume-based waste bags is decided by local government ordinance — to raise it, approval from the local council is needed
Mayors, county heads, and local council members are all elected officials → raising the burden on residents is not good for votes
There are guidelines from the Ministry of Environment, but no enforcement power → it is left to each local government
Result: for 30 years, local governments raised prices only 3.34 times on average. Half of the increases were concentrated in the early period (1996~2001)
Garbage processing cost, who is paying
The money you pay when buying volume-based waste bags is only 27% of the real garbage processing cost. Then who is paying the rest?
Same bag, 6.78 times difference
The price of volume-based waste bags is not the same across the country. Depending on where you live, the difference can be up to 6.78 times. This is based on 20L.
| Region | 20L price | |
|---|---|---|
| Yangsan, South Gyeongsang | 950 won | |
Note Highest in the country | ||
| Busan | 773 won | |
| Incheon | 758 won | |
| Gwangju | 740 won | |
| Jeju | 700 won | |
| Daegu | 622 won | |
| Gyeonggi average | 607 won | |
| Seoul | 490 won | |
| National average | 505 won | |
| South Jeolla | 358 won | |
| Cheongsong County, North Gyeongsang | 140 won | |
From dust chute to the volume-based fee system
Before the volume-based system, Korean apartment buildings had something called a dust chute. There was a small door in the hallway, and if you put trash in there, it dropped straight down. Recycling? There was no such thing. Food waste, bottles, plastic, everything was mixed together and thrown in. Because of bad smells and pests, they were all closed after the volume-based system started.
Regular houses were even more primitive. At dawn, when the garbage truck passed by ringing a bell, residents had to run out carrying their trash and dump it directly into the truck. The processing fee was collected like a tax, about 3,000 won per month, based on building size. No matter how much you threw away, the cost was the same, so there was no reason to reduce waste.
The result was terrible. In 1991, Korea's per-person garbage output was 778kg — almost two times Japan's (412kg). Garbage increased by 7~10% every year, and Seoul tried to build 11 incineration facilities, but because of resident opposition, it could build only 4.
At Nanjido by the Han River in Seoul, trash piled up for 15 years from 1978 and created a 95m 'mountain of garbage'. In summer, nearby residents said they could not even open their windows because of the smell. Now it has changed into World Cup Park, though.
The government felt the crisis, so in 1994 it tested the volume-based fee system in 33 areas. The result was amazing — trash decreased by 30~40%, and recycling increased 2 times. Then on January 1, 1995, it started across the whole country. It was the world's first case of changing an entire country to the volume-based fee system at once. Foreign experts were surprised, saying, 'How could a democratic country do this so quickly?'
Korea's trash revolution — key moments
Let's look back at the 30-year history of the volume-based fee system through key moments.
December 1994: Big trash chaos
'If the volume-based fee system starts, we have to pay!' — right before it began, there was big chaos as people illegally dumped even perfectly fine items. On average, 58,111 tons of trash poured out every day.
January 1, 1995: First nationwide launch in the world
It started at the same time in 3,487 eup, myeon, and dong areas nationwide. At first, there were fake bag sales, bag thieves (a new kind of crime that stole only empty bags!), and confusion about sorting, but 90% of the people joined in just 10 days. Women's associations led the sorting, and the system settled quickly.
2001: Taiwan benchmarked Korea
Taiwan learned from Korea's volume-based fee system and adopted it. It developed its own way: when trucks drive around playing music, residents directly throw in their bags.
2004: Food waste volume-based fee system added
Direct landfill of food waste was banned, and separate disposal became required. After this started, food waste decreased by 15.7%, and it created savings of 250 billion KRW per year.
2025: 30-year results announced
Ministry of Environment announcement — over 30 years, 160 million tons reduced (equal to 32 million 5-ton trucks), with an economic value of 45 trillion KRW. It became a global success story noticed by The New York Times and The Guardian too.
March 2026: Panic buying of bags
Because naphtha supply was cut off by the war in the Middle East, a nationwide bag shortage happened for the first time since the 1995 launch. Something that had always been there for 30 years suddenly disappeared, and only then people felt how valuable this system is.
30 years of the volume-based fee system, shown in numbers
Move your mouse over each bar. You can see at a glance how different it is from 30 years ago and now.
Is Korea the only one doing this?
Volume-based garbage fees (PAYT, Pay-As-You-Throw) exist in many countries. But Korea is basically the only country that made it mandatory nationwide all at once.
| Country | Method | |
|---|---|---|
| Korea | Required nationwide (1995~) | |
Features World's first nationwide requirement. Recycling rate 67% | ||
| Switzerland | By local government, full cost recovery | |
| Japan | By local government, very detailed sorting | |
| Taiwan | Nationwide (2001~) | |
| United States | Optional by local government | |
| Hong Kong | Not introduced | |
So what happens next?
Panic buying of garbage bags may calm down soon. The government announced measures to raise the Public Procurement Service contract unit price, reduce losses for manufacturers, and normalize production. In areas with low stock, they are also moving bags from other areas before printing, in roll fabric form.
But the real problem is something else. From January 2026, direct landfill was banned in the Seoul metropolitan area. Now waste must be incinerated first before it can be landfilled, and incineration costs much more than landfill. Disposal costs keep rising, but bag prices have stayed the same for 20 years — this system of filling the gap with taxes is reaching its limit.
Experts say we need 'Volume-Based Fee System Season 2'. It means bag prices should match reality, and we need a real system where you pay for how much you throw away. Right now, the resident burden rate is 27%, so if it goes up to 100%, bag prices would rise about 3.5 times. But per household per month, it would go from 1,200 KRW to about 4,200 KRW — about the price of one cup of coffee.
There was so much behind one volume-based garbage bag. International oil prices, the petrochemical supply chain, local government politics, and even a global success model built over 30 years. Next time you buy a bag, you may see it a little differently.
Cause of panic buying: Middle East war → naphtha supply disruption → PE price surge → bag factories avoid production because of losses
The secret of bag prices: Most of the 490 KRW is the fee for using the garbage disposal service. The bag production cost is only one part
Taxes cover 73%: Bag sales cover only 27% of disposal costs, and the rest comes from local government budgets
30 years of the volume-based fee system: Reduced by 160M tons, recycling rate 20%→67%, a global best practice
Future task: Direct landfill ban + rising disposal costs → bag price adjustment is unavoidable
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