{"id":356861,"date":"2026-03-31T13:48:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356861\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:48:25","slug":"bin-bag-panic-grips-south-korea-as-huge-iran-war-crisis-budget-agreed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356861\/","title":{"rendered":"Bin bag panic grips South Korea as huge Iran war crisis budget agreed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In Seoul last week, South Koreans were stripping shop shelves of plastic bin bags. Not food, not medicine. Bin bags.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Nearly 2.7 million of the city\u2019s mandatory \u201cpay-as-you-throw\u201d bags were sold each day, almost five times the normal volume, as residents scrambled to stockpile what they feared might soon become scarce.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">City by-laws mandate that the prepaid bags \u2013 made from naphtha, a petroleum derivative \u2013 be used to throw away household waste. But with oil supplies under strain amid the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a nation that runs on Middle Eastern oil was worried about running out.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/south-korea?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">South Korea<\/a> imports almost all of its oil, more than two-thirds of it from countries in the Persian Gulf. That deep energy dependence has spooked investors, who have been dumping Korean stocks since the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/us-israel-war-iran?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">war on Iran<\/a> broke out.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Currency dealers monitor exchange rates at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul on March 3. South Korea\u2019s won tumbled to its lowest level in 17 years this month. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/010f2754-2966-46de-a90b-14c7d774a527_4528b007.jpg\" title=\"Currency dealers monitor exchange rates at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul on March 3. South Korea\u2019s won tumbled to its lowest level in 17 years this month. Photo: AFP\"\/>Currency dealers monitor exchange rates at the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul on March 3. South Korea\u2019s won tumbled to its lowest level in 17 years this month. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Earlier this month, the main benchmark Kospi index experienced its worst single-day drop in history, plummeting by more than 12 per cent. The won has tumbled to its lowest level since the global financial crisis of 2008-09, briefly breaching 1,530 per US dollar in intraday trading on Tuesday \u2013 the first time it has traded in that range in 17 years \u2013 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has cut its 2026 growth forecast for the country by 0.4 percentage points to 1.7 per cent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Seoul last week, South Koreans were stripping shop shelves of plastic bin bags. Not food, not medicine.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[119111,138,19077,219,188597,188599,27464,188596,3743,111,139,69,128627,188598,8105,8641,188595,4790,93496,143873],"class_list":{"0":"post-356861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bank-of-korea","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-democratic-party","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-hansung-university","13":"tag-hanyang-university","14":"tag-international-monetary-fund","15":"tag-kim-sang-bong","16":"tag-kospi-index","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-organisation-for-economic-cooperation-and-development","21":"tag-people-power-party","22":"tag-russia","23":"tag-seoul","24":"tag-sogang-university","25":"tag-south-korea","26":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","27":"tag-yoon-suk-yeol"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}