Making waste acceptable and invisible

Abstract

South Korea has lived with the accumulation of plastic wastes, but the problems remained mostly dormant before 2018. Disposable plastics are often fashioned into life-saving devices for use in the short term, but their wastes are life-threatening over longer stretches of time. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a key moment in which the seeming contradictory nature of plastic needs closer investigation. This study complicates the flat narrative that plastic waste has simply increased during the pandemic, focusing instead on which types of plastic waste have been increased and treated by whom, where, and why. Building on document analysis of newspapers, statistical data, and documents produced by government agencies, I collected empirical data in field visits and interviews to document how the COVID-19 pandemic changes the political and cultural meaning of plastic waste in Korea. This study shows that the Korean government’s political aspiration to reinforce the narrative of “K-response (K-bangyeok)” rests on the disposable materiality of plastic. Thereby, I argue that plastic waste has not just increased in Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also has been mobilized and treated in a reciprocal relationship whereby the government both allowed discard of disposable plastics and invisibilized the infrastructure to treat those wastes. The longstanding accumulation of plastic waste problems compounded by material politics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea contributes to a bigger, global slow disaster underway.