Incheon City Intensifies Road Dust Removal... Year-Round Deployment of Dust Suction Vehicles and Expansion of Collection Systems

Incheon City announced on the 31st that it will invest 5.5 billion KRW this year to promote a road re-entrained dust reduction project to reduce high concentrations of fine dust.

Road re-entrained dust refers to dust accumulated on roads due to vehicle exhaust, tire wear, brake pad wear, etc., which is re-suspended into the atmosphere by vehicle movement. It accounts for 35.3% of the total fine dust (PM10 standard) emissions in Incheon City.

The city will deploy a total of 33 vehicles, including dust suction cars and high-pressure water spraying trucks, throughout the year on 71 road sections with relatively high road re-entrained dust concentrations, covering 967 km, to remove road re-entrained dust. According to the Ministry of Environment, the concentration of re-entrained dust decreases by an average of 43.7% before and after road cleaning.

Accordingly, Incheon City plans to operate flexibly by expanding cleaning vehicles during the seasonal management period from December to March every year and when emergency fine dust reduction measures are issued for ultrafine dust. In addition, if the fine dust level exceeds the 'very bad' standard (200㎍/㎥), the city has established a system to immediately notify the district offices to remove road re-entrained dust.

This year, the city secured 1.37 billion KRW in national funds to support district offices in purchasing a total of seven road cleaning vehicles, including five electric vehicles, one compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle, and one hydrogen vehicle. Since the fuel for cleaning vehicles that remove fine dust is diesel, which can cause secondary pollution, the city has been distributing eco-friendly electric and hydrogen road cleaning vehicles since 2019.

Dust Collection Vehicle [Photo by Incheon City]

Incheon City is also expanding the installation of a road dust collection system that uses vehicle wind and natural wind to capture road re-entrained dust in drainage channels, and the collected dust is naturally discharged into streams using rainwater and water from high-pressure spraying vehicles.

Last year, about 730 meters were installed and operated in some sections such as Gyeongmyeong-daero in Seo-gu, and this year, an additional 200 meters will be installed in two locations including Gyeyang-gu. Previously, in 2021, the city demonstrated the road pollution source dust collection system on some roads in Yeonsu-gu and confirmed that a 1-meter collection system can capture 350 mg of fine dust and 88 mg of ultrafine dust per day. This is about 3.6 times the amount of fine dust absorbed by one tree.

The project to attach fine dust adsorption filters to 40 buses operating in fine dust intensive management zones will also continue. These filters adsorb various harmful pollutants to the human body in the atmosphere such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and volatile organic compounds, thereby reducing fine dust. Visually, the buses appear as if they are wearing masks, creating a visual effect.

In addition, Incheon City plans to give incentives such as awards to workplaces with high participation in the 'One Company One Road Clean Campaign.' The campaign involves construction sites and asphalt plants, which generate large amounts of scattered dust and frequently operate large vehicles, managing their own road cleaning vehicles. Currently, 142 companies participate in 52 sections.

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