SLC to Transform Landfill into 'Green Growth'Mecca

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, corporation has its top five core projects in place toward environmental goals

The Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corp. (SLC), marking its 10th anniversary, has implemented the top five core projects of a plan to create a comprehensive environment/energy town in the Seoul metropolitan area by focusing its capabilities toward a forward base of low-carbon, green growth, departing from the conventional concept of being only a landfill. The following are excerpts of a recent interview between NewsWorld and SLC President and CEO Cho Chun-koo, who enumerated the details of the projects.
Question: Do you have any determination to transform the SLC on the occasion of the 10th anniversary?
Answer: The landfill has been so far running with a focus only on burying waste in a sanitary fashion. The SLC is striving to flesh out the "Permanent Landsite" vision of transforming the site into a comprehensive environment/energy town in the Seoul metropolitan area and a global environmental-tourism attraction. To this end, the corporation plans to translate into action the top five core projects ― developing the landsite into a core low-carbon, green growth force; transforming it into a global environmental-tourism attraction; ramping up efforts to operate and manage the landsite in a more environmentally-friendly manner; establishing sharing relationships with the neighborhood community; and the establishment of steps to strengthen and focus the staff? capabilities.
Starting with the May launch of a project to build a golf course, the SLC will work on the construction of a leisure/sports complex as part of a plan to build sports facilities for the upcoming 2014 Asian Games, including a swimming pool and a horse racetrack.
In the second half of this year, the SLC will embark on the construction of a residents' welfare town and plans to establish a mid- and long-term plan to set up joint projects and build a foundation for the development of the neighborhood district.
We plan to devote ourselves 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 and the nation's standing.
Q: Will you give us specifics about the development plans to transform the landsite into a core low-carbon, green growth force?
A: Wastes are a kind of resource. The SLC plans to translate into reality a wastes-to-new and renewable energy resources program, a new environmental task under a shift into the green-growth paradigm, by cashing in on the green technological power and achievements it has accumulated beyond the conventional function of burying wastes from the Seoul Metropolitan area in an environmentally sanitary manner.
The Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corp. (SLC) is accelerating its efforts to realize a plan to create a comprehensive environment/energy town in the Seoul metropolitan area by changing the landfill's waste treatment methods with the goal of not only supplying to Incheon citizens one-third of the city's annual energy demand (a substitution effect of 1.32 million barrels of oil imports), but extending its expected longevity by more than 90 years from 2044 to 2099.
Initially this year, the SLC plans to install a mechanical biological treatment facility for treating household refuse and a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) boiler facility while embarking on a project to change refuse from construction sites into energy resources by publicly selecting a contractor. We also plan to launch a project to change food waste leachate and food waste into bio-fuel while working on a plan to create a natural energy town and a bio forest area designed to transplant energy grass in an idle plot covering 4.19 million sq. meters.
To this end, we plan to establish an environment and energy graduate school and strengthen the functions of the Green Technology Research Center in an effort to raise the nation's waste-to-energy technology levels, which stand at about 65 percent, compared to those of advanced countries. The SLC also strives to ramp up its support in Korea and abroad by capitalizing on the knowhow and technological prowess it has accumulated as an institution specializing in inspecting refuse landfill facilities and analyzing waste.

The SLC continues to implement a project to change landfill gases into an energy resource, which is soon to be given carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and plans to work on another CDM project to establish itself as a forward base of green growth capable of coping with climate change.
Q: Will you elaborate on a global brand name project to transform it into a global environmental-tourism attraction?
A: The SLC plans to develop the whole landfill area into a global environmental-tourism attraction so that economic self-sufficiency can be secured by profit-seeking, demand-oriented development in connection with the ongoing DreamPark Project to reclaim the first landfill site, which has already ended operations, through the construction of golf courses, swimming pools and a horse racetrack to be part of the venues of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, the Gyeongin (Seoul-Incheon) Ara Waterway Project, to be completed by 2011, and its geographical affinity with Incheon International Airport.
Within this year, in an effort to flesh out the global environmental-tourism attraction project, related projects will be put to public contest and special purpose companies will be established to attract technology and capital from the private sector.
With the launch of a golf course project in May, an environmentally-friendly leisure/sports complex is to be created in connection with the construction of such sports facilities as swimming pools and a horse racetrack as the venues of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.
Q: Do you any measures in place to step up the environmentally-friendly management of landfill sites?
A: The SLC is shifting its refuse on-site inspection paradigm by expanding the in-depth scrutiny of refuse intakes to 20 percent and introducing a remote-controlled inspection system while seeking to ensure institutional reform by withdrawing resident inspectors' authority to control illegal refuse intakes and replacing them with ones being selected through a public competition. In addition, an advanced logistics management automation system is to be built to deal with all stages ranging from the registration of vehicles, the collection and testing of specimens and the entry and exit of vehicles.
Q: You mentioned a plan to establish relationships with the neighborhood community. Will you give more specifics?
A: In the first half of this year, the SLC begins the construction of a residents' welfare town and plans to lead the development of the neighborhood by establishing and implementing a mid- and mid-term plan to set up joint projects and build the foundation for the development of the district in conjunction with such core projects as the global environmental-tourism attraction project.
Q: What steps are in place to reinforce your staff's capability toward low-carbon, green growth?
A: The SLC is seeking to maximize human resources by changing them into professional manpower specializing in the implementation of the new projects through diverse outsourcing channels and building institutional systems to fortify employees's capabilities while striving to speed up projects by revamping the law on the advancement of the SLC's management and other related laws and systems and ensuring the transparency of its organization and operations.
Q: Would you like to add anything else in conclusion?
A: We're devoting ourselves to changing wastes into energy and resources beyond the stage of burying refuse from the Seoul Metropolitan area in an environmentally-friendly manner and transforming the landfill site into a global environmental-tourism attraction, a dream-like park everyone wishes to visit, not a disgusting landfill.
For Korea, a resource-poor nation without a drop of petroleum, the SLC is exerting all its energies to make the world's largest landfill site into world's largest global environmental-tourism attraction so that refuse can be recycled into new and renewable resources, with green technological power and a mindset toward the environment. nw

SLC President Cho Chun-koo

A power facility, powered by the recycling of gases from the landfill site.