Day 7

Day 7: May 26, 2025

Today we started out by visiting the Mapo Resource Recovery Facility. This facility is responsible for collecting roughly 650 tons of non-food waste every day. This facility accepts only non-food waste that can be burned, and places significant penalties on companies that do not comply. This is because they burn this waste and send the resulting product out to be made into bricks. I thought that was really interesting, and it made me pay attention more to the pavement. Every time I saw the bricks I would recognize them. We also got to tour the facility and see a video of how the center operates. After our tour, we had lunch and then went to the Worldcup and Haneul Parks. These also happened to be revitalized landfills turned into beautiful recreational spaces. You would never know that these areas are still landfills as then waste within them was able to be covered by soil and plants. After we ate dinner and ended our day.

Blog 5 Theme: Waste management

Although we did not visit a waste management facility, I did learn a lot about how the city disposed of food waste. The first is that they are extremely strict about food waste disposal. Food waste cannot be disposed with waste that is to be burned. Places must also separate liquid from the food waste by using special machine that compact it and remove liquid at the same time in order to remove excess weight and volume as much as possible. The majority of this food waste does not go to the landfill. Instead, it is often made into feed for livestock such as pigs or cattle. There is also food waste used for biofuel. Much of this waste is also made into compost for crops. I think this system is very innovate, and an excellent example of sustainable food practices as the waste is used over and over again. When this happens, it has many benefits as the waste does not produce methane or other gases from sitting in a landfill and decomposing, and it is cost effective to reuse the materials again instead of using them just once.