Relaxation of Chemical Regulations Favoring Large Corporations?..."Top 10 Companies' Punishment Experience"

Rep. No Woong-rae: "Chemical Safety Realities Will Be Focused on in the National Assembly Audit"

It has been revealed that all of the top 10 domestic companies have been penalized for violating the Chemical Substances Control Act (ChemSCA) over the past five years. LG (20 violations) holds the dishonor of having the highest number of ChemSCA violations among the top 10 companies.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 21st, Roh Woong-rae, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, announced that according to data received from the Ministry of Environment regarding the number of ChemSCA violations by the top 10 domestic companies, there have been a total of 86 violations from 2019 to September 2023. The annual breakdown is 20 violations in 2019, 17 in 2020, 17 in 2021, 18 in 2022, and 14 so far this year.

Among the top 10 domestic companies, LG was found to have the highest number of ChemSCA violations with 20 cases. This was followed by Hanwha with 16, Lotte with 14, SK with 10, and Samsung with 7 violations.

These companies received various penalties depending on the violations, ranging from warnings to improvement orders, fines, and prosecutions. In LG’s case, it received 5 warnings, 8 improvement orders, 7 fines, and 5 prosecutions.

Representative Roh expressed concern that the Ministry of Environment’s relaxation of chemical substance regulations could ultimately lead to ‘favoritism toward large corporations,’ given that all of the top 10 domestic companies have been penalized for ChemSCA violations in the past five years.

He stated, “The fact that all of the top 10 domestic companies have violated the ChemSCA proves that the related regulations are nothing more than paper tigers,” adding, “Despite this situation, the current government’s plan to loosen chemical substance regulations is moving in the completely wrong direction.” He also previewed, “In this national audit, we will focus intensively on the chemical safety realities and safety complacency of large corporations.”

The Ministry of Environment is currently pursuing the relaxation of chemical substance regulations. It aims to complete revisions to the Act on Registration, Evaluation, etc. of Chemical Substances (ARECS) and the Chemical Substances Control Act (ChemSCA) within this year.

The 'Plan to Reform Environmental Killer Regulations Including Chemical Substance Management,' released by the Ministry of Environment last month, includes adjusting the registration threshold for new chemical substances?which had been stricter than international standards?from an annual 0.1 tons to an annual 1 ton, aligning with advanced countries such as the European Union (EU). It also proposes shifting from uniformly applied chemical substance regulations (covering about 330 handling facilities) to a 'risk-proportional regulation' system that applies differentiated regulations based on risk levels, instead of applying them indiscriminately even to low-risk workplaces.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.