Even after being pointed out thanks... Han River Basin Environmental Office neglects 2,000 waste information errors

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jaeyoung Lee = It was found that the Han River Basin Environmental Office of the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment did not take follow-up action even though it was aware that about 2,000 cases of waste disposal information had been incorrectly reported over the past five years.

The same problem was pointed out in the 2021 audit, but it was not improved, and poor management was repeated, with the department in charge receiving a warning in this year's audit.

According to data received from the Ministry of Climate Change by a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee of the National Assembly on the 13th, there were 2,016 cases in which the Han River Basin Environmental Office failed to take action after being notified that there was an error in waste transfer information in the Orbaro system over the past five years from 2021 to last year.

During the same period, the total number of errors notified to the Han River Basin Environmental Office was 2,820, with 71% of the cases not taking follow-up action.

The Allbaro System is an online system that manages the entire waste disposal process.

If the waste discharger/processor/transporter enters information such as the amount of waste and the transport vehicle number differently in the waste transfer form, or does not complete or confirm the transfer within the deadline, the transfer information is classified as having an error.

If the handover is not completed within the deadline, the authorities will be notified immediately, and if there are differences in the information entered by the relevant people or the handover has not been confirmed within the deadline, the authorities will be notified after a three-day correction period.

Among the seven environmental agencies under the Ministry of Climate Change, the Han River Basin Environmental Agency is not the only one that has not taken follow-up action even after being notified that there were errors in waste transfer information over the past five years.

However, Geum River Basin Environmental Office (287 cases of no action), Wonju Regional Environmental Office (55 cases), and Yeongsan River Basin Environmental Office (3 cases) had fewer cases compared to the Han River Basin Environmental Office.

During the 2021 comprehensive audit of the Ministry of Climate Change, the Han River Basin Environmental Office was pointed out for only confirming and taking action on 962 out of 4,218 designated waste transfer information errors from 2018 to July 2021.

At the time, it was confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency was unable to take follow-up action on errors due to a 'lack of manpower', as one of the waste inspection staff was managing errors in handover information and one public official was supporting this.

However, the Han River Basin Environmental Office did not take follow-up action on 1,014 waste transfer information errors in this year's Ministry of Climate Affairs audit, so the department in charge received a 'warning'.

Rep. Eogyu said, "Illegal dumping of waste is repeated throughout the country, and the environmental agencies that are supposed to prevent this are not even doing the basic work of checking for errors in waste disposal information. We need to investigate the circumstances of cases where follow-up measures have not been taken for a long time and prepare measures to prevent recurrence."