Last year, Korea imported 2.54 million metric tons of industrial waste, according to government data. The majority of last year’s waste imports was coal ash at 1.27 million tons (50 percent), followed by 470,000 tons of waste batteries (18.5 percent), 240,000 tons of waste tires (9.5 percent) and 170,000 tons of waste plastics (6.6 percent).

Of them, 2.9 percent of waste tire imports, 39.7 percent of plastic waste and 14.8 percent of waste batteries were from Japan. Ninty-nine perecnt of coal ash imports were from Japan, according to the data.

Radioactive tests are only mandatory on waste imports from Japan and Russia. 

Bilateral relations are at an all-time low after Korea’s Supreme Court last year ordered Japanese companies to compensate Koreans forced into labor. In an apparent retaliatory action, Japan tightened restrictions on exports to Korea of three key materials necessary for the production of memory chips and displays, and removed Korea from its whitelist of trusted trading partners.

(laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)