Greenpeace activists hold banners reading in Korean “Failure of the recycling system in Korea” and “Ministry of Environment, regulate single-use plastics” in front of a mountain of trash.
Greenpeace East Asia Seoul office conducts a field investigation in Uiseong illegal waste dump site, with 170,300 tons of plastic and other waste piled up, the largest of this kind according to the Ministry of Environment. On the site there is a strong rotten smell and sludge is streaming around it along with toxic smoke from spontaneous combustion. This waste dump site has become a symbol of the failure of waste management and recycling system in Korea. There are 1.2 million tons of illegally abandoned waste across South Korea, according to the Ministry of Environment.