K-pop fan Kim Na-yeon used to buy stacks of the same album when there was a new release, hoping to find one of the rare selfies of her favorite stars tucked between the plastic covers.
Over the years, her burgeoning CD collection expanded to every inch of her shelves, prompting her to question its impact on the environment.
“These things are made from materials that are really difficult to recycle,” Kim said. “That got me thinking about how much carbon must be emitted to produce or get rid of them.”
Photo: AFP
Kim’s collection is part of a growing mountain of discarded CDs and merchandise waste that has swelled alongside K-pop’s global popularity.
Made with polycarbonate, CDs can be recycled but only through a special treatment process that prevents toxic gases from being released into the environment. Along with the plastic packaging, producing a CD generates about 500 grams of carbon emissions, according to an environmental impact study by Britain’s Keele University.
Based on that calculation, the weekly sales of a single top K-pop group could be “equivalent to the emissions from flying around the Earth 74 times,” said Kim.
The fan has joined a climate protection group called Kpop4Planet, which wants to hold the industry responsible for its impact on the environment.
‘MANIPULATION’
Started in 2020 by an Indonesian K-pop fan, the activist group has held protests outside the headquarters of music labels, urging them to stop “Plastic Album Sins.” The group has also collected signatures for petitions demanding a reduction in plastic production and other marketing schemes that fuel consumption as CD sales continue to rise significantly.
More than 115 million K-pop CDs were sold last year, the first time sales breached the 100 million mark for the industry.
It was a jump of 50 percent from the previous year, even though most fans are now streaming the music online rather than putting physical CDs into music players.
But K-pop fans continue to snap them up because they are attracted by the labels’ marketing ideas, Kim said.
Using promotions like offering limited edition “photocards” of the stars in the albums or a chance to win a video call with the idol, the music labels tempt fans to buy more CDs.
“So each album is basically a lottery ticket,” said K-pop fan Roza De Jong.
“The narrative is very much ‘the more you buy, the bigger your chance,’” she said, adding it was “common to see piles of plastic albums stacked on stairways and scattered across the streets of Seoul” after the buyers had picked through them for the promotional photo or ticket.
EXPLOITATIVE
Albums are also sometimes released with different covers.
“We call all of these (sales techniques) exploitative marketing,” said Kim, accusing the music labels of “manipulating” fans’ love for their artists.
HYBE, the agency behind megastars BTS, said the company has been putting effort into becoming climate friendly.
“As part of our environmental initiatives, we are using ecofriendly materials for our albums, video publications and official merchandise, minimizing plastics,” the entertainment powerhouse said, without offering greater specifics.
Industry figures suggest that album production skyrocketed during the pandemic, with experts saying that labels were looking to sales to make up for the lack of touring revenues.
While CD consumption is not limited to K-pop, activists say the South Korean industry has to play a part in cutting the waste.
Seventeen, a popular South Korean boyband, alone sold over 5.5 million copies of their album FML last year, setting the record for the highest-selling single album in K-pop history.
To discourage CD manufacturing and purchases, South Korea’s environment ministry began charging a penalty in 2003, but the tiny sums involved have had little effect in the face of the huge revenues generated by album sales.
Entertainment labels last year were charged approximately 2.0 billion won (US$143,000), said Yoon Hye-rin, deputy director of the ministry’s Resource Circulation Policy Division.
While taking aim at the labels, Kim said she would not boycott the artists.
“They aren’t the ones who know or decide the marketing schemes,” Kim said. “Every fan wants to see their artist thrive, so boycotting isn’t an option.”
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
When the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese forces 50 years ago this week, it prompted a mass exodus of some 2 million people — hundreds of thousands fleeing perilously on small boats across open water to escape the communist regime. Many ultimately settled in Southern California’s Orange County in an area now known as “Little Saigon,” not far from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, where the first refugees were airlifted upon reaching the US. The diaspora now also has significant populations in Virginia, Texas and Washington state, as well as in countries including France and Australia.
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
RSS