Plastic Kimchi container, disposable machine with tteokbokki remaining, beer can, plastic bag…
These items were taken out of a standard plastic garbage bag that came to a resource recovery facility in Seoul on the 20th of January. Picking something that should not be put in a standard plastic garbage bag quickly piled up. A Seoul city official said, "If you filter out food waste and recycled goods that need to be discharged separately, garbage in the standard plastic garbage bag will be reduced by 20-30%."
Starting this year, the Seoul Metropolitan Incheon, the 'Capital Reclaimed Landfill System' began. Garbage-filling space in the metropolitan landfills is shrinking faster than expected. As a result, domestic waste discharged in standard plastic garbage bags should be reduced by 10% (about 70,000 tons) compared to 2018.
○ Increased garbage, no place to go
Originally, the expiration date of the Seoul metropolitan landfill site was expected in August 2025. However, the waste of life flowing into the landfills of the Seoul metropolitan area exceeded expectations. Imports increased 52% from 465,000 tons in 2015 to 706,000 tons in 2018. If this is the case, it will be 9 months ahead of time.
Local governments in the Seoul Metropolitan Government issued a policy to reduce imports by 10%. If this is not done, the municipality will have to pay more than twice the import fee from 2021. It is also prohibited from bringing in household waste for five days, which can lead to garbage disturbances.
You should reduce your waste at home by 10%. But there is no pointed way. Seoul, Gyeonggi-do only made a policy to actively promote the collection method. We are also considering raising the price of the standard plastic garbage bag, but we haven't started a full-fledged discussion.
Expansion of treatment facilities is a news of supervision. The only waste treatment facility established in the Seoul metropolitan area in the last five years is Union Park in Hanam City, Gyeonggi-do. The city conspired twice to establish an additional resource recovery facility last year, but no autonomous district applied for it. Incheon city also temporarily suspended the expansion of existing incineration facilities due to opposition from residents. Garbage turmoil is not just the metropolitan area. By 2023, one third of the nation's waste landfill facility expires. Incineration facilities also fell by 60% in 10 years.
Since 2018, China and Southeast Asia have banned the importation of plastic waste, blocking the way to go abroad. 6,500 tons of illegally exported waste to the Philippines have suffered strong backlash from local environmental groups. As a result, the government brought in 1400 tons last year and the rest of the 5,100 tons have resumed from mid-month.
Eventually, if citizens leave their hands, someday the garbage may spill over in front of my house. To reduce waste, we also have to pay attention to vinyl recycling and packaging waste. Officials of the collection industry pointed out that, since 2018, some collectors of the Seoul metropolitan area refused to collect vinyl, and foamed styrene, which is a recyclable vinyl and styrofoam series, has also increased.
Environmental authorities believe that more than 30% of household waste accounts for more than 30% of all sorts of waste such as buffers, plastic tapes, and packaging containers. As the number of single-person households and consumption patterns change, the proportion of packaging waste is expected to increase. The size of the delivery service market through delivery apps increased from 3347 billion won in 2013 to 3 trillion won in 2018. Domestic parcel delivery is also increasing by about 10% every year, from 1,539.1 million to 2,542,780,000.
○ 'Reducing' is the beginning
Nam-Hoon Lee, Professor of Environmental Energy Engineering, Anyang University, said, “Processing facilities are not created for a year or two. "It takes at least seven or eight years to build a landfill," he warned. "The metropolitan area has already missed the timing to secure landfills.
"To stop the rubbish disruption, we have to pay attention to reducing waste, while at the same time securing a disposal facility," he said. It's important to manage the waste you've already generated, but it's more efficient to make sure you don't make waste in the first place.
Experts point out that the social structure of using disposable or short-priced, low-cost products must be changed. In particular, the “fast fashion” culture of buying cheap clothes and putting them on in season is accelerating environmental pollution.
Park Sang-woo, professor of environmental health at Chungnam Provincial University, head of the Institute for Low Carbon Resources Circulation, emphasizes that "from the time the product is produced, it is made with recycling in mind. Greenhouse gases generated during the extraction of raw materials to make products make up more than 50% of the total greenhouse gases. Therefore, achieving a recycling environment with good recycling could be the key to responding to climate change.
Environmental issues such as waste, climate change, marine pollution, and ecosystem changes are all connected like food chains. Professor Park said, “It is important to make less, write something long and write it again. This practice is the way to prevent climate change and fine dust issues. ”