Ministry pushes 11 cities to build more incineration plants

The Ministry of Environment on Friday notified 11 city mayors in the Greater Seoul region that they must build additional incineration plants to treat their own daily local household waste as the major landfill used by the region will shut down in 2026.

The cities have insufficient incineration capacity compared to the amount of household waste locally generated. The Waste-to-Energy Division under the ministry’s Resources Circulation Bureau sent the message to the mayors of Seoul, Incheon and the Gyeonggi provincial cities of Goyang, Bucheon, Ansan, Namyangju, Anyang, Hwaseong, Siheung, Gimpo and Gwangju.

For the city of Seoul, the average total daily household waste for 2020 was 3,687 tons. The city currently operates five incineration plants in the districts of Mapo, Yangcheon, Gangnam, Nowon and Eunpyeong that can altogether burn 2,898 tons per day. In 2020, Seoul city burned 2,475 tons of waste per day, dumped 1,083 tons at Sudokwon Landfill per day, and recycled 129 tons per day on average. The city government is now searching for a site to build a new incineration plant capable of burning 1,000 tons of waste per day.

Incheon, currently capable of burning 999 tons per day in two incineration plants, seeks to build two additional plants to burn 540 tons more per day. The city, in 2020, generated 1,150 tons of household waste per day.

Nine Gyeonggi cities currently operate seven incineration plants altogether capable of burning 1,436 tons total per day. They plan to build five new plants in Namyangju, Anyang, Hwaseong, Gimpo and Gwangju to burn an additional 1,600 tons per day and expand three existing plants in Goyang, Bucheon and Ansan to burn an additional 700 tons per day. The cities generated 2,489 tons of household waste per day in 2020.

The cities have been treating household waste by first burning or recycling it and then dumping the rest at the landfill. Goyang, Ansan, Anyang and Siheung didn’t recycle at all in 2020, according to the Waste-to-Energy Division.

The National Assembly in July 2021 approved a revision bill of the country’s Wastes Control Act that banned dumping household waste at Sudokwon Landfill starting in 2026. The landfill in western Incheon was built in 1992 after Nanjido Landfill in Seoul’s Mapo District could no longer accept the city’s waste.

The ordinance stipulates that the mayor of any city government that illegally dumps household waste without recycling or incinerating could be sentenced to a prison term of up to three years or up to a 30-million-won ($23,000) fine.

Seoul Metropolitan Government had launched a special committee to seek a site inside the city for the new incineration plant. Incheon also has one such committee currently up and running for a new plant that will burn waste from the city’s eastern and central regions. The city government is working on launching another committee for another plant to take care of waste from its western region and coastal Ganghwa District.

The ministry is taking a carrot-and-stick approach to get the cities to build additional incineration plants. The authority said they won’t finance any of the 11 city governments that plans to build a waste treatment facility other than an incineration plant. On the other hand, the ministry will fund cities that plan to build incineration plants underground with as much as 1.4 times the cost as well as funding to build various community facilities for local residents’ needs.

The ministry’s latest notification is a burden for mayors who were either re-elected or newly elected in the local elections on June 1. Their four-year terms, which officially began on Friday following a transition period, are nearly identical with the Sudokwon Landfill’s remaining period of operation.