Lee, Yoon unveil different waste management pledges

By Ko Dong-hwan

• Published Feb 12, 2022 7:25 AM KST
• Updated Feb 15, 2022 5:58 PM KST

This article is the first in a series about the 2022 presidential election candidates’ campaign pledges. In this article, their environmental policies are examined and compared. –E.D.

Lee vows to reduce plastic waste, Yoon puts forth thermal decomposition

By Ko Dong-hwan

On Feb. 3, when the four leading candidates in the March 9 presidential election debated on TV for the first time, Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party (PPP) had his guard down when his rival, Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), asked him to explain what “RE100” and “EU Taxonomy” meant as they were debating about their environmental pledges. Yoon, confounded, stuttered for several seconds and admitted he didn't know what the terms meant. They are used internationally when discussing how future industries must rely on renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels in order to prevent climate change.

Yoon and Lee are leading the nation's polls neck-and-neck with around 35-percent support each as of Thursday, and people are expecting one of them to become the country's next president. The next seven years or so are considered a critical juncture for the people across the world to make last-ditch efforts to reduce global carbon emissions in order to mitigate the climate crisis' catastrophic consequences. Eco-conscious Koreans are concerned about the candidates' pledges and whether they will indeed put such pledges into practice if elected. Some people are concerned about Yoon's apparent aloofness to pressing climate and environmental issues, while local environmental activists strongly condemn his backing of “K-nuclear power,” along with his pledge to build more nuclear power plants in Korea.

The two candidates' environmental pledges haven't drawn much public attention because the daily news has tediously focused on their smear campaigns against each other, trading allegations about their pasts ― when Lee was the Gyeonggi Province governor and Yoon was the prosecutor-general ― as well as about their wives and other family members. While Lee's eco-friendly pledges outnumber those of Yoon, some of the candidates' pledges touch on common grounds ― such as promoting electric cars and reducing waste and air pollution. Yoon has emphasized his promise to rekindle the country's nuclear power industry, whereas Lee has announced pledges for a wider range of areas, such as: more transparent information sharing on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), helping the vulnerable suffering from energy poverty, and defending the local marine product industry from the planned discharge of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

Environmental activists in Korea issued a joint statement, Wednesday, urging the candidates to promote their environmental pledges to the public better so that people can make the right choice for the country's next “climate president.” As the climate crisis is become a starker reality, and with a growing number of people realizing that they can no longer ignore it, the winning candidate will have plenty of work to do as the next president.

Electric cars, waste, air pollution

Lee and Yoon have both pledged to improve the current environment for electric car owners and those wishing to buy them. Lee, seeing that those waiting to purchase an electric car increased from 3,200 last year to 10,000 this year, promised to expand government subsidies for future buyers and to urge automakers to boost production. He also pledged to introduce more electric taxis and buses, as well as more charging stations along both the country's main highways and local roads.

Yoon promised to modify gas stations and LPG filling stations by installing battery chargers there and mitigating safety regulations for stations used by both gas and electric cars, so that people can recharge their electric cars there.

One of Lee's pledges to reduce the country's steadily mounting waste is cutting down on the use of plastic. He said he will promote the use of more reusable food containers for deliveries and take-out, and increase the number of recyclable waste collection depots nationwide to promote more recycling. He also promised to unify packaging materials for retail products to make recycling them easier, and to install more vending machines that collect plastic bottles and cans to encourage and simplify recycling.

Lee's other pledge to lower waste is making parts for electronic and home appliances available on the market for longer periods so that consumers can more conveniently repair and use the appliances longer, thus reducing the amount of products simply discarded. He also promised to extend the warranty periods for electronic and household appliances so that users can repair them more easily.

On the other side, Yoon, to lower food waste, pledged to install sink garbage disposals inside all new buildings so that the waste can go straight into the sewer, thus producing less solid food waste. He also promised that the country will stop incinerating waste and burying it at landfills and instead, start treating it with thermal decomposition methods so that waste that is dumped there and initially deemed unrecyclable can be recycled. He also pledged to introduce new laws to increase the use of recyclable materials and reduce the use of single-use, disposable products, as well as double the refund for those returning plastic bottles, cans and other recyclable materials to stores.

To clear the sky of micro dust and other air pollution, Lee promised to provide financial support to small businesses that introduce equipment to reduce emissions and to strengthen the government's current measure for cleaning the roads of fallen air pollutants from December to March ― when air pollution is worse than during other months. He also pledged to look into the Seoul-Beijing “Clean Skies Plan” cooperative project for lowering micro-dust air pollution across the region again and to form a coalition with countries in the Asia-Pacific region to push for the same purpose.

Yoon, on the other hand, promised to expand the country's power generation based on renewable energy sources and nuclear power, and to reduce the operation of fossil fuel-based power plants, which currently constitute 60 percent of the country's overall energy mix, to 40 percent within his term. He also pledged to install air purifiers in all elementary, middle and high schools, as well as nursing homes, and lower the PM 2.5 (particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less) concentration standard in public areas with high human traffic volume from 50 micrograms per cubic meter to 40.

Fukushima radioactive water, nuclear power

Lee said he will protect the local marine products industry from radioactive water released by the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan ― planned for discharge next year. Lee said he will only allow the import of seafood with 0.01 milligram per kilogram or less of foreign substances in it into the country. Local seafood will also go through a stringent screening process, and those for import will also be verified under the Positive List System, an international safety standard. Equipment and manpower to measure traces of radioactivity will also be boosted.

“Yoon said that basically no radioactive water has been leaked into the sea because of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and that, although it sustained great damage from the earthquake and tsunami, it didn't completely collapse,” Lee said. “The facts are this: in March 2011, a tsunami struck the Fukushima nuclear power plant, destroying part of the building and paralyzing the nuclear power plant. As a result, a large amount of radioactive materials leaked into the sea. The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale has assessed the event with the highest (and most dangerous) level of grade 7.”

Lee also pledged to support those below the energy poverty line by providing them with financial vouchers, allocating an annual national budget of 20 billion won ($16.7 million), so that the energy-poor can afford air conditioning or heating to better weather the ever-worsening climate crisis. Older residential buildings, where more than 50 percent of low-income families live, will receive government support to be fitted with heating and cooling systems, under Lee's plan.

Lee also promised to change the country's emission-based automobile taxation system to one based on a combination of a car's price and the carbon dioxide emissions the vehicle releases, while not increasing the tax for small-size cars, hydrogen fuel cars or electric cars.

“Europe now is levying car taxes based on each individual car's carbon emissions in order to reduce the continent's overall carbon emissions.”

Yoon, on the other hand, pledged to continue the now-halted construction of the Shin Hanul nuclear power plant reactors No. 3 and No. 4 in Uljin County, North Gyeongsang Province, to maintain nuclear power plants' contribution to the country's national energy mix at 30 to 40 percent. He also promised to commercialize small module reactors (SMRs) and to use nuclear power as the main energy source to produce blue hydrogen. It will be his administration's goal to revive the country's global competitiveness in nuclear power, which the Moon Jae-in administration has distanced itself from. Yoon said that nuclear power will also enable the country to accomplish Korea's nationally determined contribution (NDC) goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent from 2018 levels by 2030.