The persistent toxic substances in Korea: Environmental fates and human health

摘要

The Republic of Korea had started the "Five-Year Plans of Economy Development" in 1962,10 years after the Korean War, and carried out this project for four times until 1982. During those two decades the annual economic growth rates recorded double digits, and now Korea is the thirteenth largest country in economic size. However, due to the national strategy of the promotion of heavy chemical industries, environmental pollutions by toxic chemicals also accompanied the industrial development and a few big environmental accidents related with chemicals occurred. Especially, regarding the persistent organic pollutants (POPs), after the first report on the high level of dioxin emission as 6.4ng-TEQ/Nm~3 from a municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) in 1995, dioxins were becoming the hottest social issue and the many activities to manage dioxins were started both in government and scientist levels in Korea. As a consequence, the Korean government established a POPs control act to regulate dioxin emission and other related toxic chemicals. In addition, the Korean government signed the Stockholm Convention in 2001 and national efforts are continuously being made to control and remove those persistent toxic chemicals from the environment. So this special issue on "PTS in Korea" is one of the fruitful results of hard efforts to manage toxic chemicals in the Korean environment and in humans.