'Business Site Daily Waste' Fully Banned from Seoul City Resource Recovery Facilities Starting July

Those Emitting Over 300kg Per Operating Day Must Self-Dispose or Outsource Waste
Pre-Notification of Resource Recovery Facility Entry Ban for Business Site Emitters Since June Last Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 25th that starting from July of last year, it will completely ban the delivery of non-emission facility waste from workplaces to the city's resource recovery facilities and strengthen the management of workplace waste and the responsibility of waste generators for treatment.

This decision by Seoul is due to the fact that it has become cheaper to dispose of waste using volume-based waste bags than to process it independently at workplaces, leading to a lack of willingness to reduce waste and neglect in recycling and separate collection. In 2020, out of a total generation of 362,837 tons of workplace household waste, the recycling rate was 85.8%, amounting to 311,476 tons, whereas for household waste, out of a total generation of 3,177,620 tons, the recycling rate was only 64%, or 2,033,960 tons.

Accordingly, since February last year, Seoul has exchanged opinions with various stakeholders including autonomous districts and workplaces, and decided to completely ban the delivery of workplace household waste generating 300 kg or more per day to the city's resource recovery facilities starting in July. It is making thorough preparations for workplaces to handle their own waste by continuously encouraging them to switch to waste generator treatment methods before the grace period ends on June 30.

As of June last year, among 140 workplaces registered to deliver waste to the city's resource recovery facilities, about 90 workplaces have completed the transition to the waste generator treatment method as of March, and the remaining 50 workplaces are establishing treatment plans, aiming to complete the transition by June. One of the workplaces scheduled for transition, Garak Market in Songpa-gu, has established a reasonable plan to strengthen recycling and separate collection without increasing current treatment costs, and has completed preparations to stop delivery to the city's resource recovery facilities and switch to self-treatment through a pilot operation in June. All other workplaces are also in the process of establishing their own self-treatment transition plans.

Seoul emphasized that it will take the lead in alleviating the burden on resource recovery facilities and the metropolitan landfill by newly identifying workplaces that failed to report as waste generators, especially focusing on large buildings with a total floor area of 10,000㎡ or more. The total amount of workplace household waste processed at the city's resource recovery facilities last year was 19,172 tons, which is about 7% of the metropolitan landfill's annual allocation (260,287 tons/year).

Lee In-geun, Director of Environmental Energy Planning at Seoul City, said, “We aim to reduce the amount of waste delivered to the city's resource recovery facilities by 25,000 tons annually. We will thoroughly manage waste and bring in household waste that was previously sent to landfills to the resource recovery facilities to conserve the landfill as much as possible, while adhering to the principle that waste generators are responsible for treatment.” He added, “We ask each workplace to actively take an interest in and practice waste reduction and thorough separate collection with a mature civic consciousness as waste generators.”

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