[April 14, 2025] GETPPP Students Explore Sudokwon Landfill’s Waste-to-Energy and Ecological Restoration Systems
On April 14, GETPPP students traveled to the Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corporation (SLC) in Seo-gu, Incheon, to experience the site’s waste-to-resource and eco-friendly landfill systems. After watching an introductory film that distilled three decades of “waste-to-value” innovation, they traced leachate through equalization basins, two-stage biological treatment, and UV disinfection, noting live SCADA readings that were roughly 30 percent stricter than Korea’s discharge limits. They then toured a 50-MW power plant where landfill gas drawn from more than 300 wells is dried, chilled, and fed to 18 engines—its rooftop display showing an annual CO₂ reduction of 230,000 tonnes.
The group walked over grass-capped Cell 2, now stabilized, and Cell 3, where refuse layering is still under way, before moving to the Resource-Circulation Energy Town, which incinerates and cogenerates 400 tonnes of waste per day; real-time monitors posted just 27 ppm of NOx. At an RFID drive-through weighbridge, they watched 60-ton trucks roll across twin scales while any load deviating by more than five percent triggered an automatic alert. Inside a climate-controlled greenhouse, students repotted native seedlings for slope restoration, and in the 10-hectare wildflower park they explored a reclaimed slope sown with Coreopsis and Panicum. By logging water-quality, emissions, and biodiversity data throughout the tour, the students gained a concrete view of how waste can be transformed into electricity, heat, and green space—an integrated model that deepened their understanding of sustainability.