Suwon Selected as Top-Tier Municipality in Gyeonggi Province's 2022 'Creating Clean Gyeonggi' Evaluation

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hun, Reporter] Suwon has been selected as the top-tier municipality in Gyeonggi Province's '2022 Creating Clean Gyeonggi' evaluation of cities and counties.

The city and county evaluation is one of the comprehensive plans for 'Creating Clean Gyeonggi,' which the province has been promoting since 2019.

The province evaluates the 31 municipalities and counties within the province by dividing them into 3 groups based on population size, assessing each municipality's special policies for reducing household waste, qualitative evaluation through a competition of best practices, and 15 quantitative indicators in the household waste sector.

The qualitative indicator competition was held for the first time on the 17th of last month at the Suwon Convention Center to share and disseminate best practices among municipalities and counties.

With participation from 31 cities and counties and experts in the resource recycling field, various policies and achievements of municipalities and counties regarding the reduction of household waste generation were presented, serving as a venue for exchange where other cities and counties could benchmark best practices.

In the quantitative evaluation conducted through the 25th of last month, designated personnel for each indicator verified performance on 15 quantitative indicators.

As a result of the evaluation, in Group A, where 10 cities with the largest populations competed, Suwon was awarded the top-tier honor, surpassing Seongnam (excellence award) and Pyeongtaek (commendation award).

In Group B, where 10 cities with populations ranking 11-20 participated, Yangju received the top-tier award, Paju received the excellence award, and Gwangmyeong received the commendation award. In Group C, where 11 cities and counties with the smallest populations competed, Anseong (top-tier honor), Icheon (excellence award), and Guri (commendation award) were recognized.

Suwon, Yangju, and Anseong, selected as top-tier municipalities, will each receive 150 million won in prize project funds.

Municipalities and counties that received excellence awards will each receive 100 million won in prize project funds.

The commendation award selection criteria were improved this year to select municipalities and counties showing the greatest improvement in scores compared to the previous three years of evaluations, and they will each receive 50 million won in prize project funds.

The prize project funds distributed to a total of 9 outstanding municipalities and counties will be used for resource recycling projects including ▲reduction of household waste generation ▲enforcement of illegal household waste activities ▲rapid processing of household waste ▲increase in recycling rates.

The province explained that it applied reduction of household waste generation, improvement of recycling rates, rapid waste processing, enforcement of illegal activities, and strengthened publicity as key evaluation items this year.

As a result, the province granted reward money for reports on illegal household waste activities in approximately 3,400 cases and enforced approximately 21,000 cases of illegal activities through the operation of private civilian monitors for clean waste disposal.

Additionally, the province achieved significant results in rapidly processing approximately 17,000 cases of illegally dumped waste through the operation of a road observation system and mobile processing teams.

In addition, to prevent illegal activities, household waste collection facilities were installed in areas vulnerable to illegal dumping and improper sorting, and publicity regarding proper waste sorting methods was strengthened through various media channels.

Um Jin-seop, Director of the Provincial Environmental Bureau, stated, "Based on this year's evaluation results, we will make efforts next year to improve evaluation indicators to be more substantive so that inconveniences to residents caused by household waste do not occur," and added, "We will continue to play our role in creating gathering venues for 31 municipalities and counties for business exchange related to household waste."