In 1978, Seoul began dumping its rubbish on a river island; 15 years and 92 million cubic metres of waste later, two 98-metre garbage mountains were sealed beneath five ecological parks

For fifteen years, a small island on the Han River took in almost everything Seoul threw away. By the time the dumping stopped, the site held two mounds of trash nearly a hundred metres tall. What happened next was a slow process of sealing, planting and rebuilding that transformed one of the city’s most notorious eyesores into a cluster of public parks with football stadiums, hiking trails and silver grass festivals.

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