Yongin City Selects Deokseong-ri, Idong-eup as New Candidate Site for Resource Recovery Facility

385 Billion Won Invested for Completion by 2030... Daily 500t Waste Processing
City: "To Be Developed as 'Korean-style Armager Bake' with Complex Cultural Facilities"

Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 14th that it has selected the area around San 79, Deokseong-ri, Idong-eup, Cheoin-gu as the final candidate site for the new resource recovery facility, tentatively named 'Yongin Green Eco Park,' which the city is promoting.

The city explained that the site selection committee, which included residents, experts, and city council members, evaluated five candidate sites based on 37 criteria across five fields: location, social, environmental, technical, and economic aspects, and Deokseong-ri received the highest score.

A bird's-eye view of the resource recovery facility "Yongin Green Eco Park" that Yongin City plans to newly construct by 2030. The city selected the Deokseong-ri area in Idong-eup, Cheoin-gu as the final candidate site through the site selection committee. [Image source=Yongin City]

According to the committee, Deokseong-ri received high marks due to the active application by local residents for hosting the facility, and it was evaluated as capable of efficient operation due to its high connectivity with the advanced system semiconductor national industrial complex and the living resource recovery center to be established nearby. The committee also considered that there are various energy demand sites nearby, including the system semiconductor industrial complex and Yongin Technovalley, making it easier to utilize heat energy and electricity generated from waste incineration.

Accordingly, the city plans to invest a total of 385 billion KRW, including national, provincial, and city funds, to build a new resource recovery facility with an incineration capacity of 500 tons per day by 2030 in this area.

The reason the city is building a new waste incineration plant is due to the insufficient processing capacity of existing facilities. Currently, there are two incineration plants in the Yongin area: the 'Yongin Environment Center' in Geumeo-ri, Pogok-eup, Cheoin-gu, and the 'Suji Environment Center' in Pungdeokcheon-dong, Suji-gu. However, the maximum daily processing capacities of these two incinerators are only 300 tons and 70 tons respectively, so the city entrusts some household waste processing to external agencies.

The city stated that the daily waste processing demand is expected to reach 638 tons by 2030, and since direct landfill of waste will be banned from 2026, the construction of additional processing facilities is urgent.

The city especially plans to develop the new resource recovery facility as the 'Korean version of Amager Bakke.' Amager Bakke in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, is an eco-friendly resource recovery facility famous for breaking the perception of 'incinerators as undesirable facilities' with its unique architectural beauty and a 'rooftop ski slope.'

To this end, the city plans to invest about 50 billion KRW in the new resource recovery facility to provide citizens with cultural and welfare benefits by including a complex cultural and sports facility, an observation tower, a water playground, a swimming pool, and exhibition halls, as well as expanding infrastructure such as roads and water and sewage systems for residents' convenience.

In addition, to minimize the emission of harmful substances, special management of dioxins and other pollutants will be implemented. The city will set the dioxin emission standard for the new facility at 0.08 ng (nanograms), stricter than the legal allowable limit of 0.1 ng, and install a chimney automatic measuring system (TMS) to publicly disclose in real-time the emission concentrations of eight pollutants including dust, hydrogen chloride, and nitrogen oxides. Environmental impact assessments will be conducted before and after the facility's construction to analyze the effects on the surrounding ecosystem.

Meanwhile, the city plans to hold a residents' briefing session on the draft strategic environmental and climate change impact assessment for the selected construction candidate site at the Idong-eup Administrative Welfare Center on the 21st to gather residents' opinions. The announcement will also be available for viewing on the city’s website until the 12th of next month.

A city official said, "Expanding incineration facilities is essential to handle the increasing household waste due to population and business growth," adding, "Since the harmfulness issues of incinerators have been resolved with advanced technology, we will also provide resident convenience facilities and community sports facilities around the incinerator to make it a facility that many people enjoy visiting."