The Zero-Waste campaign for reducing disposals is lively nationwide, but the students at Pusan National University (PNU) still do not seem to have much response. 

According to Channel PNU's research near PNU, only 4.49% used tumblers or reusable items when ordering something to take-out. 10 cafes near PNU were randomly visited and interviewed on April 11th. The average number of take-outs a day is 120 cups, of which the case of take-outs with tumblers is 5 cups on average.

An anonymous cafe prepared an event for which the price was discounted when using tumblers, but the participation rate was low. Kim Hana (pseudonym), a part-timer of cafe "Three Labels", said, "We tried eco-friendly events like using tumblers, but I do not think this is really effective because the steady tumbler users are limited, as are the participants of this event.”

The tendency was the same in the results of a fieldwork conducted on PNU students at PNU from April 22nd to 28th. The majority of respondents regularly took out coffees (beverages), but more than half have never used tumblers before. Strictly speaking, in a total of 269 respondents, 9.6% took their coffees (beverages) to go once a month (26 respondents), 40.8% once a week (110 respondents), 33.4% once a day (90 respondents), and 4.8% took their coffees to go several times a day (13 respondents). Thus, 88.8% periodically took out coffees (beverages). Additionally, 59.8% (143 respondents) have never used their tumblers, and the majority of 40.2% (68 respondents) answered they sometimes used their ones.

Outside of PNU, the tendency to take action on zero-waste has been emphasized. Seoul recently announced that it will recruit 25 universities to participate in the “Zero-Campus” business. This business was created by about 330 students who took part in the “2022 Seoul Zero-Waste Campus MZ Conference” in March. This is for reducing disposables in universities, which is led by universities and students. The main point is to use reusable items at universities and nearby cafes without using disposables, including cups, packaging, or bowls.  

Jeju University officially tried to reduce using disposables at campus among nationwide universities, for the first time. The student council at Jeju University and environmental organizations, including the Jeju Federation for Environmental Movement, cooperated and promoted the prevention all shops at the university from using disposables in November last year.

Reporter Lee Yoon-Seo

Translated by Park Yeon-Hee