The Green New Deal following COVID-19 outbreak

This blog will be looking at the Green New Deal that the South Korea government has put into place following their 2020 elections. The win by the Democratic Party in the 2020 elections can partly be attributed to its fast response in light of the ongoing pandemic. South Korea has managed to push through relatively unscathed, through its…

Seoul fights back against the growing E-waste

E-wate refers to any electrical/electronic device that has been discarded, such as phones, computers and household appliances. As recently as 30 years ago, e-waste become a major environmental concern. This is because electronics have become more affordable amongst the backdrop of technological advancement and globalisation. For example, the average citizen of South Korea gets a new phone every 1…

Seoul’s path to Sustainability: Green regeneration projects

Seoul is the second most sustainable city in Asia, lagging only behind Singapore. And it is 7th most sustainable in the world according to Arcadis. So, how has Seoul managed to achieve this? One of Seoul’s earliest methods to encourage sustainability was through its transit system. Seoul heavily invested in its public transport system in order to reduce carbon…

Plastic pollution is overflowing onto Seoul’s streets

This blog will be looking at plastic waste in South Korea and how it has become such a big issue in recent years, following China’s ban on importing waste. In 2017, China placed a ban on the import of solid waste including paper and plastic (You et al. 2020). This has major ramifications across the globe as…

Social Disaster in Seoul as Air Pollution Levels Peak

In early 2019, the South Korean government declared a social disaster following record levels of fine dust. Fine dust refers to sand from the Mongolian and Chinese deserts that has been picked up by prevailing winds and carried to South Korea. But this fine dust does not include the many carcinogens and nano particles present within the air…

Seoul does not waste food waste

As much as we all try, we’re all guilty of throwing away food. We all feel bad throwing away yesterday’s leftovers. Yet all over the world food waste is being wasted, by not being properly recycled. For example, in the UK in 2019, only 14% of food waste was recycled. Yet South Korea has seemingly solved…

Another day, another waft of problems: Seoul’s odour pollution issue

Leading on from the previous blog which discussed Seoul’s water management, this blog will be delving into the issue of odour pollution emitting from the city’s waste water system, and how this has become such a big issue in a developed country like South Korea. Odour pollution is a major social issue affecting the quality of…

The hybridity of Seoul: Managing the city’s water system

Over half the population of the world lives in an urban area, and this is expected to increase to 66% by 2050 (Kim et al. 2018). In terms of South Korea, Seoul only makes up 0.61% of the country’s total area (Lee et al. 2018), but yet 50% of its population lives within this small…