The Ministry of Environment agreed with the three autonomous administrations to allow Sudokwon Landfill Management Corp. to extend a landfill project period for 10 more years.
The ministry and key officials of the Seoul Metropolitan City, the Incheon Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi Province agreed at a meeting on June 28 to extend the project for 10 more years following a discussion on follow-up measures on the improvement of the Sudokwon landfill agreement made on Jan. 9.
The four parties at the meeting also agreed to transfer the landfill right permit management to Incheon City following the legislation of related laws which will allow Incheon to take the proceeds of the sale of the landfill land, fees and additional charges related to the sale of the landfill, which amount to more than 1 trillion won.
The three autonomous administrations had no choice but to extend the landfill project period, which was to end in 2016 while two landfill areas still remain unused. They agreed to extend the landfill project period in lieu of using part of the second landfill area as a dump for three more years until they can find a dump in another areas. They hope to make that landfill free of garbage. They may use part of the third landfill as a waste dump for the remaining seven years of the extension.
Officials of Sudokwon Lanfill Management are not thrilled by the decision to transfer landfill management rights to Incheon City, which means they will be subject to audit of their operations by the city and the city council instead of the Ministry of Environment and the National Assembly. They don’t feel they can get fair audits from the city and the city council, for various reasons, and execute their budgets as they wanted to. The union is also against the transfer as it means a downgrade for their company to a local entity supervised by a municipal authority. Social groups in Incheon are against the transfer of the rights and the extension of the landfill projects for fear that private citizens and business will be barred from operating landfills for business purposes. They also want to use part of the landfill for a garbage dump as they have had a hard time finding a suitable site.
Officials of the Sudokwon landfill management are concerned that many members of the council for Incheon City have been known to be influence peddlers working for the interests of business firms, therefore are leery of the rights transfer, reports said.
The landfill has been divided into three project areas, with the first project completed and the second about 90 percent complete. The third and fourth are about to get started soon, with some 86,000 tons of earth needed to refill them, including 3.5 million tons of garbage from Seoul and neighboring cities every year.
Sudokwon’s landfill management has been using garbage to generate energy at a recycled energy plant built at the landfill, while boosting R&D activity results on the reuse of garbage and other wastes and technologies to generate energy from waste.
However, officials of the Sudokwon landfill management feel that such projects as those carried out by their company would not run smoothly under Incheon City, as the city would put economic matters first in all the projects associated with the landfill areas, especially, those related to public interest.
The government also has a duty to reduce garbage and other waste materials that are to be buried in the landfill, while the local autonomous organizations should help the central government in taking care of the garbage disposals in their responsible areas, using them in construction and other means in such a way as to benefit society by integrating the treatment of garbage.
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