Lessons from South Korea’s Waste Management Policy
iasparliament
March 03, 2018
What is the issue?
Quality of life in India’s towns and cities has been deteriorating due to poor pollution control norms, waste disposal and management.
South Korea’s success in this domain has important lessons to learn from.
What is India’s status?
India generates over 150,000 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) per day, with Mumbai being the world’s fifth most wasteful city.
Despite the situation becoming a cause of serious concern, only 83% of waste generated in India is collected and less than 30% is treated.
According to the World Bank, India’s daily waste generation will reach 377,000 tonnes by 2025.
Unregulated urbanisation and industrialisation has caused this, and the consequences are real and troubling.
India’s waste predicament presents numerous social and environmental challenges for urban local bodies (ULBs) as there are significant health effects.
Additionally, the plight of thousands of informal ragpickers who sustain their livelihoods by collecting, sorting, and trading waste goes largely unnoticed.
How did South Korea respond to the challenge of waste management?
South Korea has a robust waste management system, and has been successful in decoupling the link between economic growth and waste generation.
It is a small country with just 5 crore people but generates around 53,000 tonnes of MSW per day, which is 5 times the per-capita generation in India.
Despite rapid industrialization over the past half century, has reduced MSW by 40% while its nominal GDP has seen a five-fold increase.
The approach - Unique economic and social development trajectories of individual countries mandate different approaches to waste management.
Until the 1980s, Korea, like most other developing countries, focused on improving efficiency of waste management through incineration and landfills.
While this was a relatively easier approach than public campaigns to “Reduce and Recycle”, focus on the harder aspects gained traction in 1990s.
The challenge was to decelerate waste generation, and hence South Korea implemented a volume-based waste fee system.
This was a paradigm shift focused on controlling waste generation and achieving maximum rates of recycling.
Results - It has since seen a drastic reduction in MSW generation - from 30.6 million MT in 1990 to 19.3 million MT in 2016.
Meanwhile, landfill and incineration rates have decreased dramatically from 94% in 1990 to 38% in 2016.
It is one of the few countries to recycle food waste and at 60% recycling rate, South Korea is currently the 2nd highest in the world after Germany.
What are the accessory initiatives that were taken up?
Landfill Recovery - Projects such as the Nanjido landfill recovery project of the Seoul metropolitan government have been aplenty.
Today, the Nanjido site welcomes 10 million visitors a year, and saves about $600,000 a year by providing landfill gas to be used as boiler fuel.
Also, world’s largest landfill, Sudokwon landfill in Incheon, is currently being converted into “Dream Park”, a leisure and environmental education centre.
These initiatives are successfully transforming hazardous waste sites into sustainable ecological attractions.
Electricity projects - As a complementary to its waste management policies South Korea focused on Waste to Energy (WTE) projects.
Budgetary and technical support was provided to local governments for the expanding WTE facilities since 2008.
Notably, world’s first landfill-powered hydrogen plant was built in South Korea in 2011.
Currently, as much as 60% of South Korea’s new and renewable energy is from WTE facilities.
What are the lessons to be learnt?
South Korea’s success in the waste management domain is a result of strong political will and public demand for cleaner and healthier environments.
India’s economy is growing rapidly, and is expected to face an insurmountable waste crisis, unless waste management is taken up as a high priority now.
Hence, all stakeholders much come together to ensure a clean and healthy natural environment for the current and for generations to come.
