Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
New campaign for Seoul residents calls for cutting 1 trash bag per person annually
Kwon Min, director-general of Climate Change & Energy at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, speaks at a press briefing held at City Hall in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
Seoul launches drive to cut waste by 40,000 tons over 2 years
The Seoul Metropolitan Government launched a citizen-led campaign Monday, encouraging residents to reduce household waste by one trash bag per person each year, with the goal of cutting 40,000 tons of waste over the next two years.
Under the campaign, each resident is asked to cut waste by the equivalent of one standard 10-liter city-issued garbage bags. Currently, the average Seoul resident uses about 48 such bags annually.
If all 10 million residents participate, the city estimates the effort will reduce waste by about 60 tons per day, which is roughly half the daily household waste generated by a single district in the city, which averages 120 tons. Achieving the target would result in a reduction of about 44,000 tons of household waste over two years.
The campaign follows a ban on direct landfilling of household waste in the Seoul metropolitan area that took effect Jan. 1. Since then, Seoul has been forced to ship some of its waste to regions outside the capital area because of limited treatment capacity within the city. As of this month, 0.9 percent of household waste generated in Seoul is being sent outside the metropolitan region, while disposal costs have risen by about 39 percent compared to using public incinerators in the city.
To address the problem, the city plans to expand and modernize metropolitan resource recovery facilities by 2033, raising public processing capacity to 2,700 tons per day and enabling Seoul to treat 100 percent of its household waste internally.
However, the plan faces uncertainty as residents and the Mapo District Office have filed legal challenges against the construction of a new large-scale recovery facility in their district. The city lost its first court ruling and a second appellate decision is scheduled for Feb. 12.
Kwon Min, director-general of climate change and energy at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, acknowledged failing to uphold the principle of treating waste at its point of origin.
“We will work to restore this principle as soon as possible and ensure that by 2033, all household waste generated in Seoul can be treated within the city,” Kwon said at a media briefing.