Official devotes life to environment
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Shim Moo-kyung, vice president at the Korea Recycling Service Agency, poses at his office in Yeouido, Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of Korea Recycling Service Agency
By Lee Min-hyung
A red tide was what made Shim Moo-kyung devote his entire life in solving environmental issues.
“Back in the 1970s, the southern coast suffered a serious problem of blooming algae, causing immense damage to the nation’s fisheries industry,” said Shim, vice president at the Korea Recycling Service Agency (KORA), in an interview. “Since then I have wanted to resolve issues regarding ocean pollution.”
Shim, 57, studied environmental engineering at Pukyong National University. He has since dreamed of becoming a “red tide expert.”
“Environmental engineering was not a promising major, but I wanted to do something different, so I chose it,” he said.
Shim started his career as an employee at the Ministry of Environment in 1982. He then became one of the few high-ranking officials who did not take the state examination for higher civil service. This is a rare case as most of the nation’s administrative officers pass the exam.
He said he was able to reach his position in recognition of his strong drive in policy making to prevent air and ocean pollution. In 2011, Shim was named “the most admired high-ranking official in the environment ministry” for his leadership and sound judgment in terms of approaching environmental issues.
But he is more widely known as a person who enacted the “pay-as-you-throw” system in 1993.
“Most garbage was buried in landfills before the law took effect in 1995,” he said. “But it became harder to find landfill sites, hit by strong opposition from local residents.”
In 2000, he pushed for introducing natural gas buses to reduce the level of air pollution in urban areas.
“Automobile emissions are one of the biggest causes of air pollution,” he said. “On top of that, the level of fine dust remains very high in Korea, compared to member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”
He then pushed for enacting a law to use natural gas buses in major cities across the nation.
“The introduction of natural gas buses was key to stopping the public from suffering respiratory diseases,” he said.