Government to Strengthen Surveillance by Expanding Persistent Organic Pollutants Monitoring Network

Ministry of Environment Establishes 3rd Basic Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutants Management (2021-2025)... Effective from This Year

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The government is promoting the expansion and strengthening of the environmental monitoring network for persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It plans to regularize the integrated mercury monitoring network and establish purpose-specific intensive monitoring networks for long-range transport assessment and pollution source surveillance.

On the 27th, the Ministry of Environment announced that it has established the 3rd Basic Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutant Management (2021?2025) with the goal of "protecting public health and the environment from persistent pollutants," and will begin full-scale implementation this year.

Persistent organic pollutants are substances defined under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Minamata Convention on Mercury, characterized by toxicity, persistence, bioaccumulation, and long-range transport, posing threats to humans and ecosystems.

So far, the government has focused on establishing a management system covering the entire lifecycle of persistent organic pollutants through the 2nd Basic Plan (2017?2020). It has identified detailed handling and distribution status of trace amounts of persistent organic pollutants, strengthened administrative measures against facilities exceeding dioxin emission standards (December 2018), and introduced a system for public disclosure of administrative actions (April 2019).

The 3rd plan integrates the statutory Basic Plan for Persistent Organic Pollutant Management and the non-statutory Comprehensive Mercury Management Measures following the amendment and enforcement of the Persistent Organic Pollutant Management Act on the 20th of next month. It consists of four stages?response to conventions, implementation, evaluation, and feedback?and 12 promotion tasks.

First, to reduce emissions, the Ministry of Environment will expand dioxin emission facilities (incinerators) and improve management systems, establish an inventory of major perfluorinated compound emission sources and understand their behavior during emission processes, and develop standard analysis methods and removal technologies for perfluorinated compounds.

For enhanced surveillance, it will regularize the integrated mercury monitoring network, establish purpose-specific intensive monitoring networks for long-range transport assessment and pollution source surveillance, and expand the functions of the integrated management system. Additionally, it plans to build a cooperative system for monitoring persistent organic pollutants and mercury in biological samples through the National Environmental Health Survey (human) and the Environmental Sample Bank (ecological) sample sharing.

Hamina, Director of Environmental Health Policy at the Ministry of Environment, stated, "With growing public interest and concern about persistent organic pollutants, we will actively promote policies to protect public health and guarantee environmental rights through the establishment of this basic plan."