Starting next year, manufacturers and importers of plastic toys will be required to collect and recycle their products.

On Monday the environment ministry issued a 40-day advance notice, effective Tuesday, regarding the revision of an enforcement ordinance that makes toys subject to the extended producer responsibility system.

The manufacturers and importers will be obliged to collect and recycle a certain quantity of their products, in line with minimum amounts the ministry announces each year.

The companies will have to pay their share of the recycling costs to a cooperative, which will carry out the recycling for them.

Manufacturers will be exempt if their annual plastic toy sales total less than one billion won, or around 737-thousand U.S. dollars, or less than ten tons, while importers will be exempt  if they import less than 300 million won worth of plastic toys or less than three tons.