A major negative aspect of industrialization was the increase in factories lacking proper environmental management. The result is severe air pollution that is threatening citizens' wellbeing, as well as that of our future generations. Therefore, the news to Koreans that the advanced air quality management system called CleanSys has been established and is already operating effectively. Through this system each large smokestack can be monitored, assisting the efforts towards simultaneously achieving the goals of both air quality preservation and industrial development.
CleanSys is a collaborative project, realized through many years of trial error and cooperation with other agencies and private sectors. With the establishment of CleanSys, Korea is upholding the promise to protect the health of citizens from the dangers of air pollution. The foundation is being built for handing over a clean atmospheric environment to future generations.
The Environmental Management Corporation (EMC) is in charge of building and maintaining both integrated and regional control centers. It duties include: collection and analysis of data sent by CleanSys, transmission of applicable data to other organizations, performing various environmental tests on emission facilities, examination of any abnormal data, and providing technological support to facilities with CleanSys.
Stricter legislation introduced systematically
Under the Clean Air Conservation Act, Article 15, Clause 2, Companies must install appropriate analyzers to maintain appropriate emission standards. And according to Ministry of Environment, 2000, Notification No. 138 and the standard Method, they are required to make efforts to reduce air pollutants by to actively transmitting and utilizing CleanSys data.
Between 2001 and 2005, Ministry of Environment legislated the systemic installations of CleanSys on emission facilities that produce air pollutants and connect them to integrated control center to activate CleanSys data transmission between them.
CleanSys control centers are modern environment supervision system that will perform on-line collection and maintenance of current environment data. These control centers will help to improve everyday lifestyle of citizens by helping them to improve environmental qualities. Beyond that, they will increase national competitiveness of Korea within international area by fostering new ways of using technology to improve environment. By 2007, it is forecasted that approximately 1500 sources will be connected to various control centers. Companies are now following ethical patterns of management so that their factory sites do not pose hazards to others. CleanSys is being applied in various ways throughout site management such as improving the emission process and the appropriate management of pollutants control facilities.
The government has since 1988 installed a continuous emission monitoring system in 31 enterprises across Ulsan, Onsan and Maepo Industrial complex which has been selected as special countermeasure area for air preservation, followed by 21 enterprises in Yeosu industrial complex in 1993. By 1999, the CleanSys had expanded across the whole country to measure and transfer in real time to the control center all data regarding seven polluting substances such as dust, sulfur oxide.
By 2006, the CleanSys has become well-established and has shown effectiveness in improving the environment with lower pollution substance emissions. Enterprises who have installed the CleanSys are using its data to make changes in their operational systems to improve and prevent pollution, while still making profits and gaining residents' trust.
Global role for Korea's CleanSys
With the success of CleanSys that has combined IT and ET technology, Korea has placed itself in a leading position internationally, and the ministry of environment is making progress in implementing scientific policies related to pollution control. Thus, a basis has been created for developing it into a total environment observation system for water quality, sewerage, soil, noise, and earthquakes.
Since 1999, Ministry of Environment (MOE) decided to pursue more scientific ways of inspection of emission facilities of big stationary sources. The Ministry judged the prior method of inspecting these emission facilities through public manpower as being too inefficient in keeping watches on air pollution and maintaining business transparencies. Thus, to improve efficiency of the inspection system, it has decided to use CleanSys in stacks. This new technology will dramatically improve the whole inspection process by making it possible for the Ministry to maintain strict 24-hour watches on these emission facilities. With implementation of this new measure, the Ministry wishes to collect for administrative uses and create an environment where companies will voluntarily try to improve their environmental policies.
In the future, pollutants will become more complex and varied than nowadays because of the increase in causal factors such as: ozone damages in big cities, noxious odors caused by volatile organic compounds in industrial complexes, increase in number of automobiles, and widespread urbanization. Under such negative conditions, our goal to create society in which economic development and environmental conservation can coexist harmoniously is more difficult than ever before.
With rapid shifts in people's lifestyles, new forms of pollutants appeared. Effective system to maintain these new phenomena are needed right away. Due to such changes in national and international environment, policies that will help to react to these new conditions are badly needed this year.
The government plans to encourage these facilities to utilize CleanSys technology by rewarding them by providing them with special incentives such as: exemption from regular inspections, extra financial supports, etc. Other than the creation of such incentive system, the government is closely studying such method as emission trading, which is often used by developed countries, to have more practical and useful way of encouraging companies to maintain higher environmental standards.
In 1990, district environmental offices took over control. Following this change, Busan district environmental office ordered CleanSys installations on 54 of businesses in Ulsan and Onsan industrial complexes in May of 1991. Among these, 46 of these businesses succeeded in installing CleanSys by 1992. By September of 1992, control centers in these districts were technologically upgraded to support 24-hour watches on these sources.
Monitoring by CleanSys Control Centers
Furthermore, to improve the quality of incoming data and to reduce public complaints, Environmental Management Corporation was called on to build and maintain a CleanSys control center in Yeosu industrial complex in 1997. Through this, the EMC succeeded in improving the atmospheric environment in the region. Successes of stack CleanSys in Yeosu and Ulsan helped to provide substantial proof and legal basis for government's wish to pursue CleanSys method and also amend current environmental laws.
The Minister of Environment has the authority to use data from CleanSys for administrative purposes such as: for checking whether amount of pollutants from designated facilities meet the emission standards, assessing related emission charges as long as these data do not have any error caused by defects in the analyzer or computer networks. (Clean Air Conservation Act, Enforcement Ordinance, Article 10, Clause 4) In this way, the Korean government is thus trying to devise more efficient and practical ways of keeping environmental watches on over 30,000 emission facilities all over the country. By installing CleanSys in these facilities, the government is mainly trying to: decrease number of citizen complaints, produce more useful data, better assess emission charge on these facilities, and maintain more efficient watches on these facilities than before. Furthermore, to promote more effective environmental conservation polices, it plans to widely promote uses of CleanSys technology as a method of regulating air quality around all emission facilities in the future.
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