Emergency Waste Disposal: 160,000 Tons of Direct Landfill Approved in Seoul and Surrounding Areas

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The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment and the three Seoul-area jurisdictions—Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province—announced they will temporarily permit exceptional direct landfilling to address a gap in waste processing caused by maintenance at public incinerators. They said the metropolitan landfill will accept 163,000 tons per year beginning March 23. (≈ 179,677 short tons)

This measure is intended to prevent disruptions when unavoidable events—such as incinerator shutdowns—occur, even though direct landfilling of household waste is generally banned as of this year. The national and local governments said they will reduce the permitted volume relative to past levels and phase in further cuts to keep direct landfilling to a minimum.

The ministry and the three jurisdictions said the Metropolitan Landfill Management Corporation’s steering committee approved an annual exceptional direct-landfill allowance of 163,000 tons for the incinerator maintenance period. (≈ 179,677 short tons)

Under the decision, direct landfilling of household waste generated in the metropolitan area remains generally prohibited from January 1. However, the law permits direct landfilling in unavoidable cases such as disasters or shutdowns of waste-processing facilities.

The limited, exceptional allowance aims to ensure stable processing of metropolitan household waste during unavoidable public incinerator outages while avoiding an excessive shift toward private contractors.

The 163,000-ton allowance represents about 31% of the metropolitan landfill’s three-year average direct-landfill volume (524,000 tons). (≈ 577,611 short tons) The three jurisdictions must reduce direct-landfill volumes during the maintenance period by 10% from the recent three-year average (181,000 tons). (≈ 199,518 short tons) They plan to expand the reduction rate in stages.

Kim Go-eung, director of the ministry’s Resources Circulation Bureau, said, “We will manage this thoroughly to ensure that metropolitan household waste is handled reliably during the public incinerator maintenance period.”