Extravagantly wrapped gift sets are weighing down the shelves of department stores ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, despite government efforts to crack down on the overuse of packaging.

Amid growing public attention toward environmental protection, the Ministry of Environment pledged to discourage excessive packaging on gift sets for two weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday begins on Jan. 30.

Some consumers say that the practice can be excused during the holiday season, because it shows that the sender has spent money to show care and respect.

“My in-laws prefer presents with a lot of wrappings and accessories, because they think those are the more expensive ones,” said Choi, 31, a housewife who asked to be identified only by her last name.

According to the Ministry of Environment’s 2012 report, 49,159 tons of domestic waste was thrown out in 2010, with packaging waste making up about 50 to 60 percent of the total.

At the Bucheon Recycle center, the amount of recyclable materials nearly doubled from some 8,220 tons in 2001 to 16,440 tons in 2012. The Environment Ministry officials said packaging waste made up about 90 percent of all recyclable materials.

“As the country became wealthier, the demand for consumer items including luxuriously wrapped gift sets increases, leading to larger quantities of waste,” said Kim Jeong-dae, an environment professor at Hallym Polytechnic University.

The figure is higher after Lunar New Year and Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving, when Koreans look forward to giving and receiving gifts wrapped in bright, glittery paper.

A manager at a landfill run by Buyeo County, South Chungcheong Province, said the daily amount of recyclable waste the center received grows from 12 tons to 19 tons during the holiday period.

To curb the trend, the government launched a crackdown Thursday on companies violating packaging guidelines for their holiday gift sets.

For confectionaries such as hangwa, traditional Korean Sweets, packaging must not exceed 20 percent of the total gift volume and must be kept to two layers.

For gifts that have various products bundled together in one box, packaging can make up 25 percent of the total volume, with the same number of layers.

A regulation applied to all categories of products says manufacturers must not use paper bands or ribbons, and recommends using recyclable materials.

Manufacturers or importers who violate the regulation could face fines of up to 3 million won ($2,800).

But the government’s anti-waste drive is failing to pay off, as fancy wrapping is part of the joy of gift-giving, or something that is inevitably pressured to buy, for some.

“Packaging is the most critical factor in selling items, especially during the gift season like Lunar New Year and Chuseok. Often, how it looks at first sight is more important than what is inside,” Lee, a marketer at a major local home shopping firm, said on condition of anonymity.

With Lunar New Year just around the corner, it is not difficult to spot ribbons and extra paper wrapped around plastic boxes carrying sweets at all three major Korean department stores ― Shinsegae, Lotte and Hyundai.

Some boxes had one thin layer of walnuts and dried persimmons, with 80 percent of the space filled with tissue paper or left empty. Many of them also violated the no-ribbon and no-paper-band rule, but the ministry said local governments were responsible for the inspections.

Prices varied from 80,000 to 350,000 won for Hangwa gift sets, while strings of dried corvinas went well above 800,000 won for a box.

“Prices vary by the quality and amount of each product, of course, but you have got to take into consideration that a luxurious box design is not easy to find,” a salesperson said while explaining hangwa gifts to a group of women preparing for the holidays.

“The receiver will surely fall in love with this present when opening the box,” she said.

By Suk Gee-hyun
(monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)