The Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corp. (SLC) displayed its eco-friendly waste collection and treatment system at the 34th International Exhibition on Environmental Technology & Green Energy (ENVEX 2012). 

The SLC was one of 230 Korean and 76 foreign exhibitors at the ENVEX 2012, which took place at COEX in Seoul from June 11-14. 

Spectators took a look at the past, the present, and the future of SLC, which has been remunerated with worldwide recognition for its reclaimed landfill site. The SLC has now become the subject of benchmarking as roughly 500,000 citizens and foreigners come here every year to see the change.

The SLC is setting itself up as an international model as the largest of its kind, as a daily intake of about 16,000 tons of waste from houses, construction sites, and businesses in the Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi areas is treated in the form of a safer and more hygienic landfill. 

It is designed with a total of 165 cm of infrastructure consisting of an underground water removal layer (30 cm), a solidification treatment water-blocking layer (75 cm), and a leachate removal layer (60 cm). Vertical and horizontal collection pipes are laid to collect landfill gas to be sent to a landfill gas power plant with a capacity of 50MW. To increase the leachate generation, the landfill working area is minimized, and drainages are installed to drain the rainwater quickly. In times of rain, the intake of wastes is controlled to minimize leachate. Soil covering and pressing are carried out within five hours of landfill, and the area on and off the landfill is deodorized, and small incinerators are installed to burn surplus landfill gas.  

The SLC is setting its sights on transforming the landfill site into one of the world’s best environmental attractions.

The landfill gas is utilized to operate a 50 MW landfill gas power plant, generating $38 million worth of electricity with carbon emission reductions (CERs) of 1.4 million tons of CO2 from the United Nations. 

The completion of the Waste-to-Energy Town, Natural Energy Town, Bio Energy Town, and Eco-Culture complex by 2020 will produce 2.27 million Gcal of energy annually, achieving the annual effect of replacing 1.54 million barrels of crude oil.

The SLC has the DreamPark Plan in place. The plan envisages a green project designed to recover the nature of the landfill site and to strengthen the eco-friendly functions for urban space while maximizing the landfill functions. The corporation strives to transform the landfill site into a multi-purpose park of environment, ecology, sports and education. It devotes itself to transforming the landfill site into a global mecca of a “green oilfield” for “green tourism,” being no longer a facility that disgusts the people, in an effort to raise the district’ s and the nation’ s standing. #