In South Korea, the rise of K-pop also contributes to plastic pollution

Despite competition from streaming, k-pop labels continue to sell records in Korea and from the South thanks to sophisticated marketing strategies, but the pollution and plastic waste that this consumption generates alarms some fans.

Korean K-pop fan Kim Na-Yeon used to buy multiple copies of the same album every time it was released, hoping to find a “selfie” tucked inside. ” from one of his favorite stars.

With incentives like limited edition “photo cards” of the singers or “vouchers” for a video call with one of them, record labels are incentivizing K-pop fans to buy more CDs.

Over the years, Kim Na-Yeon's shelves have become filled with CDs, leading her to question the environmental impact of the consumption habit.

“Each album, in fact, is a lottery ticket,” Roza De Jong, another K-pop fan, told AFP.

It's “common to see piles of plastic albums stacked on stairs and scattered on the streets of Seoul,” she said, with fans buying them just to find a photo or a ticket.

Albums are also sometimes released with different covers.

– “Marketing exploitation” –

Fans of K-pop group BTS, in a pop-up store in Seoul, April 26, 2024 © AFP – ANTHONY WALLACE

“We call all this marketing exploitation,” Kim Na-Yeon laments, accusing music labels of “manipulating” fans' love for their artists.

More than 115 million K-pop CDs were sold in 2023, marking the first time in the industry's history that sales have surpassed 100 million.

That's a 50% jump from the previous year, though consumers have shifted to streaming music rather than buying physical records.

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The numbers have also soared during the Covid pandemic, with experts saying labels have turned to sales to make up for lost tour revenue.

HYBE, the agency for top boy band BTS, told AFP it has made efforts to be environmentally friendly.

“We “We use environmentally friendly materials for our albums, video publications and official merchandise by reducing plastics,” HYBE responded to AFP.

However, CDs “are made from materials that are very difficult to recycle” and “it made me think about the amount of carbon emitted to produce or dispose of them,” Kim Na-Yeon explains.

– Boycott to be excluded –

Albums and merchandise related to four K-pop groups on November 22, 2024 © AFP – ANTHONY WALLACE

Made of polycarbonate, they can be recycled but only through a special treatment process that prevents toxic gases from being released into the environment.

In addition to the plastic packaging, the production of a CD generates about 500 grams of carbon emissions, according to an environmental impact study by the British University of Keele.

If we refer to the weekly sales of a top K-pop group, this could represent “the equivalent of the emissions produced by 74 flights around the Earth,” says Kim Na-Yeon.

To discourage the manufacture and purchase of CDs, South Korea's Environment Ministry began imposing a penalty in 2003.

Last year, labels had to pay about 2.0 billion won (over 246 million euros), said Yoon Hye-rin, deputy director of the Environment Ministry's resource circulation policy division.

This year, South Korea is hosting U.N. negotiations on a global treaty to combat plastic pollution, which opened in Busan on Monday.

While lashing out at record labels, Kim Na-Yeon said she would not boycott artists for as much.

“They are not the ones who know or decide the marketing plan,” and each fan wants “to see their artist prosper, so boycotting is not an option,” she said.

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