Burning waste shouldn't be only solution: Mapo District head

Mapo District Head Park Kang-soo (wearing white protective gear) and officials from the district office rummage through samples of daily household trash collected locally to address problem of recyclable items that wind up as trash for incineration in front of the district office, Oct. 11. Courtesy of the Mapo District Office

By Ko Dong-hwan

The head of Seoul's Mapo District ― where the Seoul Metropolitan Government wants to erect a new household waste incineration plant despite local residents' fierce objections ― has proposed an alternative to treat the city's brimming waste problem. It was a last-ditch effort by the district head to avoid building the facility in Mapo, where there is already another trash-burning plant.

Mapo District Head Park Kang-soo said Tuesday that instead of building what's widely known as a "socially unwanted facility," a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant could be introduced to effectively reduce the mounting volume of trash. He also proposed that by introducing a MBT plant to other districts in Seoul as well, the city's total daily trash ― amounting to 3,680 tons each day (as of 2020, according to the Ministry of Environment) ― can be reduced enough so as not to require an additional incineration plant.

Seoul now treats household waste by burning about 2,475 tons at five incineration plants scattered across the city, dumping about 1,083 tons at the Sudokwon Landfill in Incheon, and recycling about 120 tons. While the five incineration plants' overall capacity is less than 2,900 tons, Sudokwon Landfill, which has been accepting trash from the country's capital region of Incheon, Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, will no longer take deliveries of rubbish starting in 2026. The situation has propelled an urgent need to introduce a new incineration plant in Seoul to pick up the slack.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government, after a search for the most ideal site for a new incineration plant, selected Mapo District last September. The selection had immediately drawn condemnation from the district's local residents including District Head Park, who were indignant at having another "socially unwanted facility" in their neighborhood.

"Burning it shouldn't be the only solution," Park said Tuesday. "If we can reduce the volume of 1,000 tons of daily household wastes by any means, we don't need an additional incineration plant. In fact, half of the household waste that go into an incineration plant doesn't even need to be burnt but could be sorted for recycling."

After the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced in September that they would introduce a second household waste incineration plant in Mapo District in the city, protesters demonstrate in front of Seoul City Council on Sept. 14. The poster's slogan reads, "Save Mapo District." Korea Times file

To explain his argument, Park on Tuesday showed up at a public square in front of the district office. There were 190 samples of garbage bags that have been collected in the past five days from across Mapo. About 100 bags were from apartment buildings while the rest were from free-standing houses and public commercial buildings. With some 60 district residents watching the scene, the district head ripped through the trash and looked for what could be further recycled, like scraps of metal, plastics and used plastic bags. The efforts reflected what a MBT plant can do to collected daily household waste: carry out a last screening process for recycling and thus reduce the volume of trash to burn.

"Out of the samples, over 64 percent of collected trash items were recyclable, such as vinyl, paper, plastic and aluminum cans," Park Jun, head of Socially Obnoxious Facility Task Force under the district office, told The Korea Times. "And 35.7 percent of the volume of the originally collected trash remained for incineration."

The district office said on Tuesday that some 70 percent of household waste can be reduced through a MBT process. Park from the task force cited a performance by a MBT plant in Donghae, Gangwon Province, from 2020 to 2021. Donghae plant recorded that throughout the period, it sorted out 62 percent of collected wastes as recyclables and reduced trash to burn to 32 percent of their original volumes.

Park from the task force has recently contacted a MBT plant in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, to request screening trash samples from Mapo to prove the method's efficiency and the lack of need for an additional incineration plant in the district. The Pocheon plant in 2020 made headlines by clearing off a globally-reported gigantic heap of 192,000 tons of illegally dumped waste in Uiseong County, North Gyeongsang Province, in 22 months. It would have taken more than seven years, according to the official. The plant agreed to the request, and District Head Park plans to visit the plant and watch the test himself.

Mapo District Head Park on Tuesday further claimed that stoker-type incineration, a method mostly used for burning trash in the country, should be instead replaced with a high-temperature melting method to treat the waste more effectively and in a more environment-friendly manner. While stoker incineration basically burns the trash, the melting method turns solid wastes into liquid using 2,000-degree-Celsius heat and also burns off environmental pollutants as well, including dioxins.

"What's left of the alternative incineration practice is environmentally non-hazardous and can be recycled for road construction," said the district office. "It doesn't require treating residual ashes that came off burning trash in the current method."