[The Hwankyung Ilbo] The Ministry of Environment said it has disposed 726,000 tons of illegal wastes, or 60.3% of the total 1.2 million tons, across the country, and plans to dispose of all remaining illegal wastes by the first half of next year.

The Ministry of Environment established measures to eradicate illegal wastes in November last year as illegal activities such as unauthorized dumping and neglect of wastes increased.

Under the measures, the government completed an investigation of illegal dumping and illegal export of wastes nationwide in February of this year and announced measures to strengthen the management of illegal wastes by 2022.

However, the Ministry of Environment changed its goal to deal with all the illegal wastes within this year by drastically speeding up the original disposal plan, but it is expected to be able to handle up to 75% by the end of this year.

The government plans to intensively dispose of illegal wastes, aiming to reach some 900,000 tons by the end of the year.

The Wastes Control Act was revised in November to fundamentally prevent illegal wastes from occurring and will be implemented from May next year.

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