Cosmetics brand Laneige to preserve Asia's maritime environment with Swiss-based environment group

[Courtesy of Amorepacific]

SEOUL -- Laneige, a skincare brand affiliated with South Korea's top cosmetics maker Amorepacific, will work with the World Wide Fund for Nature, a non-governmental wildlife conservation organization, to carry out marine preservation projects in South Korea, China, and Thailand. The Swiss-based group established to preserve endangered species has more than five million members in more than 100 countries.  
 
Various types of ocean waste including discarded plastic come from rivers. According to 2021 data cited by South Korea's state-funded Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), more than half of the plastic waste that enters the oceans is from five Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.
 
Amorepacific said in a statement on June 5 that Laneige signed an agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for maritime conservation. In China, the beauty maker will sponsor WWF-CHINA which oversees supporting research institutes for sustainable marine resource conservation. In Thailand, the two groups will build an ocean conservation community to help collect 90 tons of maritime waste every year. In South Korea, Laneige's employees will take part in a plogging, an activity in which humans pick up discarded materials while jogging at Cheongpodae Beach in the southwestern tourist town of Taean.
 
Laneige collected 235 tons of ocean waste only in 2022 at Cheongpodae Beach. Data released by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries in 2021 showed that more than one million tons of ocean waste were collected across the country. About 50 percent of South Korea's ocean waste was composed of fishnets and buoys made of plastic.
 
In December 2022, the maritime ministry launched an ocean waste management committee to recycle more than 20 percent of waste materials collected from the ocean by 2027. The committee will focus on upgrading technology that reuses discarded materials without changing the chemical structure of their substances.