Starting Next Year, 'Vacuum Road Surface Cleaning Vehicles' to Operate on Paldang Water Source Local Roads

A total of 22 routes spanning 611km across 9 cities and counties including Yangpyeong-gun

Vacuum Road Sweeper [Provided by Gyeonggi-do]

[Asia Economy Reporter La Young-cheol] Starting next year, 'vacuum street sweepers' will be introduced and operated to remove high-concentration pollutants from local roads within the Paldang water source protection zone.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 15th, "We plan to introduce a total of 8 'vacuum street sweepers' and launch a 'pilot project for street sweeper operation' under the jurisdiction of Gyeonggi Province from the first half of next year."

In particular, after gathering opinions from cities and counties that face difficulties in expanding manpower and charging infrastructure, the province decided not to delegate the operation to the cities and counties but to operate it directly.

To this end, the national government funds required for purchasing the vacuum street sweepers were applied for to the Ministry of Environment last October, and it was decided to receive 1.2 billion KRW, which is 50% of the total purchase cost of 2.4 billion KRW for 8 units (300 million KRW per unit).

This project aims to reduce the proportion of high-concentration pollutants on local roads within the Paldang water source protection zone in the province, which are included in the 'Installation sections of non-point pollution reduction facilities on roads within water source protection zones (Ministry of Environment Notification No. 2016-44)' announced by the Ministry of Environment.

'Non-point pollution' refers to pollution caused by numerous unspecified sources whose paths are unclear, such as roads or urban areas, unlike pollution sources generated at specific locations like domestic sewage or factory/livestock wastewater.

According to the notification, the roads in the province where non-point pollution reduction facilities must be mandatorily installed include a total of 22 routes (25 sections) across 9 cities and counties, including Yangpyeong-gun, with a total length of 611 km.

Based on the results of the 'Master Plan for Installation of Non-point Pollution Reduction Facilities' conducted from September 2018 to February this year, 438 km, or 71.7% of the 611 km target routes, showed that regular road cleaning at least once a week is sufficient to significantly reduce non-point pollution sources.

Based on this, intensive management will be carried out during the high-concentration fine dust season in winter (December to March). Additionally, a 'Non-point Pollution Reduction Device Installation Project' will be simultaneously promoted with a total budget of 19.5 billion KRW, including 9.75 billion KRW each from national and provincial funds, targeting five cities and counties with water source protection zone roads: Gwangju, Yongin, Yeoju, Yangpyeong, and Namyangju.

Meanwhile, the 'street sweepers' to be introduced are equipped with cleaning brushes and filters that prevent fine dust emissions, making them suitable for street and dust cleaning. However, it was also pointed out that since the suction inlet has the same structure as conventional street sweepers, the dust cleaning width is narrow, and periodic cleaning and replacement of the filters are necessary.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.