According to the pollution prevention and monitoring mechanisms drafted in 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promotes the demonstration plan that includes detailed chemicals disclosure in the manufacturing process (upstream) and wastewater monitoring (downstream) in the optoelectronic industry and Science Park. For the chemicals disclosure, the manufacturers are asked to regularly declare the raw materials used by the industries. For the wastewater monitoring, the manufacturers are asked to check for the indium, gallium, molybdenum, total toxic organic (TTO), and acute toxicity in the effluent. Further, the plan suggests adding optoelectronic material and element manufacturing industry to the Water Pollution Control Act Industry Classifications and Definitions and drawing up the regulated items and standards. Then, the EPA can control the effluent discharged from optoelectronic material and element manufacturing industry. There are many industries that discharge ammonia-nitrogen in their wastewater. The investigation estimated that total ammonia-nitrogen discharged from industries was 71,644 kg/day. The largest contributor was sewage system in Science Park, and its load was estimated to be 19.5% of the total ammonia-nitrogen. Further, both petrochemical industry and animal husbandry also have high pollution potential. Some industry associations and organizations have started the investigation and analysis of nitrogen-containing wastewater. By means of accumulating more wastewater data, it will promote the set up of ammonia-nitrogen effluent standard. The plan has revised the Effluent Standard of optoelectronic material and element manufacturing industry and gathered information on the regulations of the effluent acute toxicity in Korea. Further, based on the wastewater characteristics in petrochemical industry, the plan has drafted the volatile organic compound categories and their standards. Furthermore, the plan also investigates the appropriateness of regulations and standards for specific industry or items (such as the COD standard of dairy farm wastewater).

Optoelectronic Material and Element Manufacturing Industry、Ammonia Nitrogen、Effluent Standard