History of WtE Technologies and Their Development in Korea

Waste should be managed by the principle with the concept of ‘integrated waste management’, which includes four options (Reduce, Recycle, Waste to Energy (WtE) or Combustion, and Landfill) implementing in order with priority.

by Yong-Chil Seo

Abstract

Waste should be managed by the principle with the concept of ‘integrated waste management’, which includes four options (Reduce, Recycle, Waste to Energy (WtE) or Combustion, and Landfill) implementing in order with priority, and encourages all the options to be utilized in vital and complementary way. When this principle is applied, we are able to achieve zero landfill and circular economy. Since ‘Waste Management Law’ was enforced in 1986, such integrated waste management concept was applied with effective policies and regulations in Korea. In case of WtE, two times of actively adopted occasion since then. The first momentum was due to the policy that guided installation of numerous environmental facilities and infrastructures during 1990 ~ 2005. Most of the household waste incinerators with a capacity more than 100 tons/day were constructed during this period. The second was the policy related to introduction of SRF (Solid Refuse Fuel) for recovering energy from all the combustibles being dumped into landfill in 2008. Of course, a lot of policies on the waste reduction and recycling of wastes, such as separate collection, volume-based tipping, EPR, and food waste separation, etc. with the polluter (generator) responsibility concept, have been implemented. As the result, statistics show that around 60% of household wastes is recycled, and 24% of them is treated by WtE technologies today. As additional efforts towards circular economy, ‘Frame Act on Resource Circulation’ was recently enacted in 2018. The Seoul metropolitan landfill site will be closed in 2026 and no waste without pre-treatment such as incineration could be landfilled after 2030. Therefore, some portion of combustible waste, which has been dumped into landfill, must be either incinerated or processed with WtE technologies. However, still the government may not recognize the role of WtE for circular economy, and the adversity in waste management like waste crisis may continue. Also the local cities including Seoul are struggling to install a new WtE facility and to replace the aged facilities over 30 years of operation. These could be due to the lack of efforts to support the WtE facility installation and to resolve the public misperception. In this presentation, historical review of WtE facility installations in waste management with the appreciation of WtE to circular economy will be introduced. And the future direction on WtE in terms of policy, technology, present situation with main issues will be presented.

Keywords: incirerator, SRF, waste to energy, circular economy, history of waste management

published: Korea Society of Waste Management, 11|2022
Keywords: Energy Recovery, Korea (Republic of)

Professor Yong-Chil Seo
Yonsei University