Park Gang-su, Mayor of Mapo District, Emphasizes the Need for a 'Pre-treatment Facility' to Reduce Household Waste During a 'Waste Composition Analysis' with Residents at Mapo District Office Plaza on the 11th at 2 PM, Proposing a New Alternative to Incinerator Construction... Stresses That Reduced Incineration Waste Should Be Burned Using a High-Temperature Melting Method with Minimal Harmful Emissions
Park Gang-su, Mayor of Mapo District, is explaining while showing the volume-based waste bags collected for the analysis of household waste characteristics at 2 p.m. on the 11th.
[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] As the issue of the household waste incineration plant in Sangam-dong, Mapo, has become a hot topic, Mapo-gu is drawing attention by presenting a new alternative.
On the 11th at 2 p.m., Park Gang-su, the mayor of Mapo-gu, stated, “Incineration of household waste is not the only answer; a new alternative must be proposed.”
Currently, the amount of waste generated daily in Seoul is 3,200 tons, of which 2,200 tons are processed at four incineration plants (Mapo, Gangnam, Nowon, Yangcheon).
Starting in 2026, direct landfill of volume-based waste bags will be banned, and Seoul City plans to install additional incineration plants to handle the 1,000 tons of waste that will have nowhere to go.
In response, Mayor Park Gang-su of Mapo-gu offered a simple yet clear solution: “If we reduce 1,000 tons of waste, there will be no need to install additional incineration plants.”
Mayor Park says that more than half of the currently generated household waste does not actually require incineration. To verify this, the district will conduct a ‘composition analysis’ of household waste with residents at the Mapo-gu Office plaza at 2 p.m. on the 11th.
This event aims to find out how much of the waste in volume-based bags is recyclable and to collect data on reducing incineration waste, thereby demonstrating the unnecessary need for additional incineration plant construction.
The samples for the composition analysis will be waste from volume-based bags collected over the past five days, representing 53% from apartment complexes, 32% from general housing, and 15% from commercial establishments within Mapo-gu. The mayor will personally open the volume-based bags and sort the waste to demonstrate that waste management without building new incineration plants is possible through efforts to reduce household waste.
In this regard, Mayor Park emphasizes the need to expand ‘pre-treatment facilities’ that can reduce household waste. Household waste pre-treatment facilities refer to facilities that, before incineration, crush and sort volume-based bags to separate recyclable metals, plastics, and waste vinyl, thereby reducing the final incineration waste.
Through the household waste pre-treatment process, about 70% of household waste can be reduced. Mayor Park believes that if pre-treatment facilities are installed in each autonomous district of Seoul, there will be no need to build additional incineration plants. Mapo-gu plans to demonstrate how much volume-based household waste generated in Mapo-gu can be reduced by using a pre-treatment facility located in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do, in the near future.
Furthermore, Mayor Park states that the reduced incineration waste should be treated not by the current stoker method but by the ‘high-temperature melting method’ (melting solids at high temperatures into liquid), which emits almost no harmful substances. The high-temperature melting method, also called the ultimate waste treatment technology, is an eco-friendly incineration method that completely combusts harmful substances such as dioxins at temperatures up to 2,000 degrees Celsius. Even the residue from burning waste becomes harmless and can be used as aggregate for road construction, eliminating the need for landfill after incineration.
Mayor Park Gang-su of Mapo-gu reiterated, “The unfair and unjust site selection by Seoul City for Mapo-gu must be withdrawn.” He added, “Seoul City should not insist on installing additional incineration plants unconditionally but actively consider alternatives like the waste treatment method proposed by Mapo-gu and carefully contemplate what is best for the residents of Mapo-gu and Seoul.”
Following two press conferences where Mayor Park pointed out the illegality and unfairness of the Seoul Metropolitan Resource Recovery Facility site selection process and called for a complete cancellation of the Mapo-gu candidate site selection, his presentation of alternatives this day opens the possibility for dialogue with Seoul City, drawing attention.
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