South Korean Updates: Special management plan for prohibition of food waste leachate dumping in the sea (17 Jan 2013)

Special management plan for prohibition of food waste leachate dumping in the sea

webmaster

2013.01.17

The Ministry of Environment (MOE) announced on the 17^th that from January to March 2013 is set as the special management period for pursuing special management plan on food waste leachate.

Entire prohibition of food waste leachate disposal to the ocean is pursued as the London Protocol entered into force in 2006.

According to the food waste leachate management plan, MOE will conduct daily inspection on the status of each local government’s transition of food waste leachate dumping from ocean to land in parallel with environmental monitoring to eradicate illegal environmental pollution.

In addition, MOE is organizing and running countermeasure teams from January 2013, establishing close cooperation system among related organizations.  

In particular, the entire food waste leachate that has been dumped in the sea is treated on land from 2013 and not much of difficulty is expected with diverse treatment methods available. 

In 2013, 2012’s food waste leachate disposal (about 3,800 ton/day) in the sea is treated in different ways including waste water treatment (approx. 30%), contacting out (approx. 21%) and incineration (8%). 

However, collecting food waste leachate is temporarily having trouble due to contract issues of local governments in metropolitan areas and continuing cold wave.

Contracts are delayed as the local governments try to conclude the contracts at the disposal cost of 81,000 ~ 115,000 won per ton but private treatment requested the increased cost of 124,000 ~ 134,000 won per ton.

The major reason for the increase seems to be the increase of cost for disposal from transition to treatment on land (70,000won/ton) from the ocean (40,000~45,000won/ton).

MOE is planning to hold meetings with local governments in metropolitan area and private treatment companies on the 17^th to support negation on the cost.

Meanwhile, the government was able to significantly reduce the amount of food waste leachate disposed in the sea through consistent effort.

Source: http://eng.me.go.kr/board.do?method=view&docSeq=11147&bbsCode=new_news&currentPage=1&searchType=&searchText=&categoryCode=