Busan City in South Korea has registered a closed landfill as a carbon sink project for the first time in the country, turning a former waste site into a source of carbon credits. The project won the grand prize in the city's 2026 Regulatory Rationalization Best Practices Competition. Because closed landfills have no carbon-emitting facilities, they were previously difficult to register under existing systems. Busan prepared logic meeting international standards to achieve registration. The city selected six regulatory reform cases total, including two excellence awards for policies on parental leave mortgage deferrals and urban regeneration zone changes. Busan plans to submit the winning cases to a national competition hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The city expects the landfill carbon credit model to spread as a field-oriented regulatory reform case nationwide. This is a concrete example of turning a liability into an environmental asset. The key detail is that Busan had to build new methodology to get the closed landfill recognized as a carbon sink. If other municipalities follow, it could open up a new category of offset projects in South Korea.
