Sip, Swap and Sustain: How to Replace Plastic Cups with Essentials
Residents near PNU can exchange transparent plastic cups for daily necessities through a new eco-friendly reward program in districts near PNU, from September to November 2025.
A program has been launched near Pusan National University (PNU)’s Busan campus, where residents can receive daily necessities in exchange for transparent plastic cups.
The Jangjeon 2-dong Administrative Welfare Center, where PNU’s Busan campus is located, announced that it will implement the “Transparent Plastic Cup Reward Exchange Program” for three months starting in September 2025. This eco-friendly community-participation policy was established to reduce single-use waste in urban areas and to promote citizens’ engagement in resource recycling practices.
Citizens wishing to participate should visit the Jangjeon 1·2-dong or Geumseong-dong Administrative Welfare Center on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month between 3 pm and 5 pm, bringing transparent plastic cups along with identification. For every 10 transparent plastic cups, you can receive one 10L volume-based waste bag and for every 20 cups, one package of instant noodles. The maximum exchange per person is limited to 100 cups. Furthermore, damaged or uncleaned cups cannot be exchanged.
Jangjeon 2-dong Administrative Welfare Center believes this initiative will help improve the environment, given the area’s concentration of cafes, typical of a university district. The center stated, “The Jangjeon-dong area is densely packed with cafes, resulting in numerous illegally discarded disposable plastic cups littering the streets, which damages the urban landscape and causes serious environmental pollution,” adding, “This project will encourage greater citizens’ participation in resource circulation and lead to tangible environmental protection.”
Some of the collected cups will be used for community events or transferred to local recycling companies to be repurposed into other resources. Meanwhile, this project, which saw a high level of participation from about 500 residents in Jangjeon 2-dong in 2024, has expanded its target areas to Jangjeon 1-dong and Geumseong-dong in 2025.
Reporter Seo Hye-Ryeong
Translated by Channel PNU